WIB News - November 2011

A Message from DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips

Minnesota can take a lot of pride in the quality of its workforce. The state has one of the highest high school graduation rates in the country, and nearly one-third of our adults have bachelor’s degrees. Employers tell us over and over that one of the biggest advantages of operating a business in Minnesota is having a pool of highly educated and motivated workers at their disposal.

At the same time, we have some work to do when it comes to aligning employer needs with worker skills. During his visits around the state this fall, Gov. Mark Dayton heard repeatedly from employers, especially those in the manufacturing sector, who said they were struggling to find qualified people for skilled positions. A DEED survey that was released a few weeks ago found the same thing. Nearly one-half of the manufacturers responding to our survey said they considered the shortage of skilled workers to be a moderate or serious problem, and they expect the skills gap to worsen in the next few years.

This is an important issue that has the potential to affect many businesses in Minnesota, not just those in manufacturing. But the good news is this: We recognize the problem and are developing strategies to solve it. In fact, our new Office of Innovative and Strategic Alliances, led by Kathy Sweeney, has several initiatives already under way:

Pathways to Employment: Under this program, DEED is working with the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the State Council on Disability to help increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

FastTRAC: This initiative helps adults who lack the skills they need to succeed in high-demand, well-paying careers. Participants learn basic skills like math and reading and career-specific skills in areas such as health care, office administration and precision manufacturing.

Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities-Digital Literary Project: The goal of this effort is to help rural communities compete in the broadband economy. People will be taught computer literacy and skills, businesses and entrepreneurs will receive technical assistance and training, and low-income residents will be given refurbished computers.

These projects are a good start in our mission to improve the skills of our workers and make Minnesota a more attractive and competitive place for businesses. These are complex problems with complex solutions. It will take time to see results. But by working together, I’m confident that we will succeed.

Skills@Work Campaign Unveiled at Job Summit

Gov. Mark Dayton convened the Governor’s Job Summit to gather leaders from Minnesota’s business, nonprofit, government and academic sectors to share their ideas on positioning Minnesota’s economy for success. Eight hundred people attended the event, held on Oct. 25 in St. Paul. 

“Today is a day for ideas …,” said Gov. Dayton. “We all have different ideas.  Let’s find what it is we agree upon, what our shared ideas are that will work best for Minnesota, for the benefit of all of us, for the benefit of the state.”

While many topics like energy efficiency, improved capital access, branding of Minnesota, and international trade were discussed, the skills gap proved to be among the issues business leaders care most about. Several of them shared stories about jobs unfilled because they can’t find workers with the right skills. 

An executive panel of leaders from Minnesota companies agreed that one of our highest priorities needs to be ensuring our future workforce is world-class, made up of highly-skilled technically proficient workers. 

Bill George, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, talked about how this will take a joint effort between educational and business leaders, shifts in the way we educate young Americans and prepare workers, and a true lifelong commitment to learning.

Michael Mandelbaum, keynote speaker and co-author of the book “That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back,” identified education as one of the key issues Minnesota needs to address. He said students at the bottom level of education don’t have the skills required for good jobs. “We turn out people like that all the time,” he said. To make a good living, high school graduates have to have additional training or work-related experience. 

And, with so much interest in training and education, the job summit was the perfect venue to unveil Skills@Work, a statewide campaign to close Minnesota's growing skills gap.

Governor’s Workforce Development Council (GWDC) Chair Inez Wildwood, who moderated the panel about aligning post-secondary education and workforce training, unveiled the campaign.

It has three broad goals:

• To raise awareness about the urgency of Minnesota's skills gap and create a unified voice to call for closing the gap;
  
• To connect and assist regional partners – including employers, educators, workforce development professionals and community-based organizations – in improving and aligning education and training to meet regional needs; and
• To develop and promote a state policy platform that closes the skills gap.

Skills@Work will engage state and local partners by convening regional meetings, fostering statewide conversations around policy solutions, and holding events around the state to raise awareness about the skills gap.

The campaign is a means of addressing the “All Hands on Deck” report, published a year ago by the GWDC, which details 16 recommendations for improving Minnesota’s workforce.  The report is available at www.gwdc.org.

To join the campaign, click here.

For more information, visit www.skillsatwork.org.

The job summit was organized by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development and the Office of the Governor, Mark Dayton.

For more information about the job summit, visit Gov. Dayton’s blog or visit PositivelyMinnesota.com. 

Career Training Partnerships Receive $37 Million

Minnesota’s education and workforce development partners have been awarded more than $37 million in Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training grants from the U.S. Department of Labor. The department awarded 32 grants totaling nearly $500 million to fund projects that help dislocated workers change careers. 

The purpose of the grant program is to accelerate individual learning and improve college retention and achievement rates, increasing industry-recognized credential or degree completion rates.

Other priorities include:

• Reducing time for completion of training;
• Building programs that meet industry needs;
• Developing career pathways; and
• Strengthening online and technology-enabled learning.

In addition to dislocated workers, TAA program participants who are changing careers will be eligible to apply for the training.

Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training Grants

Health Professions Pathways Consortium $19.6 million
The project will use a best practices model for health professions training centered on career pathways and competency-based curriculum for improving employment outcomes for adult learners. Anoka-Ramsey Community College and Pine Technical College are members of the consortium.

Bridges2Healthcare $12.7 million
Training providers will build capacity to improve and expand curricular offerings online and in classrooms, use cutting-edge models for counseling and bridge models to integrate basic skills instruction with occupational training, and support adult learners. Minnesota State College – Southeast Technical, Riverland Community College and Rochester Community and Technical College are members of the consortium.

Northland Community and Technical College $4.8 million
The college will develop an imagery analyst program to train workers for the emerging unmanned aircraft systems industry. Adult learners can earn a new Associate in Applied Science (AAS) degree in imagery analysis, complementing the college’s unmanned aircraft systems maintenance technician program.  

More information about the awards is available here.

Wildwood Appointed to National Workforce Board Committee

Inez Wildwood (pictured) has been appointed to the National Association of State Workforce Board Chairs - executive committee by association Chair Mark Musick.

As a member of the executive committee, she will help conduct the board chair’s work, equipping state Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) with programs and other resources to build leadership, influence federal workforce policy, and become catalysts for workforce development reforms.

In addition to Musick, who is also chair of the Georgia State WIB, she joins five other leaders on the committee. They include Mike Fleming, association vice chair and chair, Kansas State WIB; Steven Hendrickson, immediate association past chair and chair, Oklahoma State WIB; Greg White, executive director, Oregon State WIB; Joseph Bevilacqua, co-chairman, Massachusetts State WIB; and Huey Battle, chair, Virginia State WIB.

Wildwood, a resident of Duluth, has been involved in developing innovative training and programming related to workforce development for more than 10 years.

In September, she was named chair of the Governor’s Workforce Development Council (GWDC). Wildwood is also the recipient of the 2009 Trailblazer - Exemplary Business Leadership Award from the National Network of Sector Partners. 

She is the workforce planning and talent development manager of Minnesota Power/Allete and has more than 30 years of human resources and counseling services experience. Wildwood is the co-chair of Minnesota FastTRAC; member of the Minnesota Commission on Judicial Selection; and GWDC business representative to the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership board. In addition, she serves as the co-chair of the Minnesota Energy Sector Partnership, administering a $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor for renewable energy workforce development.

Feds Award $1.9 Million for Mining Cluster

Challenge grants of more than $1.9 million have been awarded by three federal agencies to support the Northeastern Minnesota Mining Cluster. The grants are for advancing mineral research, accelerating educational programs, and increasing technical assistance to area entrepreneurs and businesses. The Northeastern Minnesota Mining Cluster is composed of mining and steel companies, suppliers, vendors and organizations that support mining’s strategic value.

Collectively, mining cluster members account for more than one-third of northeastern Minnesota’s gross regional product.

The awards are among 20 federal Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge grants totaling $37 million made to high-growth regional industry clusters nationwide.

Grants to the Northeastern Minnesota Mining Cluster are:

• $800,000 from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration to assist the Natural Resources Research Institute in Duluth with research on the potential of rare earth minerals, mineral recovery and processing. The funding will also assist entrepreneurs and small businesses in the development and manufacturing of new products and technologies.
  
  
• $998,985 from the U.S. Department of Labor - Employment and Training Administration to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) in partnership with the Northeast Higher Education District's Applied Learning Institute and the Iron Range Engineering Program. The funding will be used to encourage, train and provide education to individuals in mining industry-related careers. The growth of existing mining operations along with new precious minerals initiatives will require a more highly skilled workforce. Both programs are based on project-based learning protocols that provide the students with invaluable hands-on industry expertise prior to receiving their certification or degree. Support from the Minnesota WorkForce Centers in the northeast region with assessments and career planning activities is an integral component for ensuring the success of the initiative.
  
  
• $150,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration to the University of Minnesota, Duluth Center for Economic Development and Small Business Development Center of Northeastern Minnesota. The funding will be used to provide technical assistance and educational opportunities to entrepreneurs and businesses that are involved in the mining industry and mining industry cluster. Assistance will include feasibility analysis, business planning, start-up assistance and exporting.

Regionally, the grants are expected to create 655 new jobs, hold potential in the long-term for 3,000 non-ferrous mining jobs, result in the start of at least 13 businesses, and train hundreds of new workers, according to Business North.com. Nationwide, the grants awarded to the 20 regional clusters are expected to create more than 4,800 jobs and 300 new businesses, retain 2,400 jobs and train approximately 4,000 workers for careers in high-growth industries.

For additional information on Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge grants visit: http://www.eda.gov/InvestmentsGrants/jobsandinnovationchallenge.

Minnesota Honored for Promising Business Practice

The U.S. Department of Labor and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies honored a Minnesota collaboration for an innovative business practice in which Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants are linked with MinnesotaWorks.net and WorkForce Center System resources. 

Craig Gustafson, who is an Unemployment Insurance director at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), received the award at the 2011 National UI Directors’ Conference and IT/Legal Issues Forum held in October in Providence, R.I.

The Minnesota collaboration, which included WorkForce Center partners, the MinnesotaWorks.net team, DEED, and Business and Information Technology staff, was recognized for developing a series of six e-mails to encourage claimants to use MinnesotaWorks.net and other WorkForce Center resources. Workshops for resume writing, interview techniques, job search strategies and job clubs were promoted. Through the process, e-mails have been delivered to more than 24,500 UI claimants.

“Minnesota’s UI and WorkForce Center system are better connected as a result of this process,” said Julie Toskey, who directs MinnesotaWorks.net at DEED. “We have partnered to share data and customer information, so that more UI claimants are using our resources for job hunting.”

The results have been outstanding, according to Toskey. Approximately 37 percent of recipients registered an account in MinnesotaWorks.net; 47 percent built or uploaded their resume into the job bank; and 50 percent displayed their resume to employers who use the job bank.

FastTRAC Awards Nearly $1.7 Million for Career Pathways

The Greater Twin Cities United Way, Minnesota Department of Education – Adult Basic Education, Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), Minnesota Department of Human Services, and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) awarded nearly $1.7 million to 17 adult career pathways projects in the state under the FastTRAC  initiative.

DEED received 23 grant requests totaling more than $1.9 million in response to the request for proposals. The applications were reviewed and the projects selected by the Minnesota Department of Education – Adult Basic Education; MnSCU – Office of the Chancellor; Greater Twin Cities United Way; Minnesota Department of Human Services; DEED; and the Minnesota Workforce Council Association.

FastTRAC Grant Awards

Pathway to Manufacturing Success, $91,627
Funding will provide machine tool, mechanical drafting and design, and engineering training required for employment in manufacturing jobs. A manufacturing prep class began at Alexandria Technical and Community College on Oct. 17. Students who successfully complete the course will have the opportunity to enroll in courses in computers and basic machining processes at no fee.

Pathway to Health Care Career Success, $95,000
The project will be used for training participants require to become certified medical lab technicians.

Success Skills for Office Assistants, $95,000
The project will equip participants with skills leading to employment as office assistants.

Pathways to Health Care Careers $61,500
The project will offer participants skills instruction to become certified home health aides, nursing assistants or office workers certified in medical administration.

Health Informatics Pathway, $55,756
The project will train participants for employment as certified phlebotomy technicians.

Universal Health Care Worker, $94,900
Participants will learn skills necessary for employment as certified nursing assistants, certified home health aides and trained medication administration workers. Participants can also earn a CPR certificate or a license in safe food handling.

South Central Health Care Career Pathway, $74,800
The funding will be used for training participants for employment as certified nursing assistants and home health aides.

Early Childhood Education, $51,401
The project will offer participants training to earn credits toward an early childhood education diploma or degree.

Rochester Community & Technical College Mayo CNA FastTRAC Program, $69,991
Participants will receive training for employment as certified nursing assistants.

Enhanced West Metro Pathway to HealthCare Careers, $75,000
Participants will be provided training for employment as nursing assistants or other entry-level positions in health care. Training can lead to nursing assistant or trained medication administration certifications.

Pharm Tech Futures, $95,000
The project will provide participants with skills required for employment as certified pharmacy technicians.

North Minneapolis FastTRAC, $350,000 
The funding will equip participants with training that leads to a certificate in business and entrepreneurship, lean manufacturing, culinary arts or dental office support.

Anoka Healthcare/Nursing Pathways, $119,561
The project will fund training for participants to become certified nursing assistants and earn credits toward certification in health care services for older adults.

Ramsey Medical Careers Pathway, $74,997
The project will offer participants training leading to a medical records clerk certificate and exposure to other career paths in the medical field. 

Saint Paul EMS Academy, $94,725
The project will provide training enabling participants to earn certificates to become emergency medical technicians.

St. Paul Medical Careers Pathway, $80,780
The project will give participants the skills required for employment as certified nursing assistants or the option of enrolling in anatomy and physiology courses for other medical careers.

South Central College Healthcare FastTRAC Program, $88,392
The project will provide training leading to nursing assistant certification or career skills required for other entry-level employment in the health care field.

Check out a new video featuring interviews with adult learners and service providers involved with Minnesota FastTRAC training. Be sure to “like” the video on YouTube.

For more details, including project partners, click here.

GWDC Innovations Update

The Governor’s Workforce Development Council (GWDC) is at the center of a number of innovative initiatives to support the needs of Minnesota’s workforce and economy, according to Executive Director Bryan Lindsley.  These include:

• Development and design of All Hands on Deck: Sixteen Ideas for Strengthening Minnesota’s Workforce. This 2011 policy advisory was innovative in definitively describing the state’s workforce challenges, outlining specific policy language with clear legislative action steps, and presenting statistics and policy in an aesthetically pleasing and marketable design. Additionally, the advisory advanced FastTRAC, our state’s innovative career pathways strategy.
  
  
• Creation of “Minnesota’s Growing Skills Gap ― An Online Tour” to educate Minnesotans about the need for skilled workers.
  
  
• Innovative visual presentation of Minnesota’s state and federal workforce development spending.
  
  
• Development of a standardized return on investment methodology (ROI) for Minnesota’s workforce programs. Unlike most return on investment calculations, Minnesota’s ROI will measure net impacts (by analyzing and comparing groups of individuals similar to program participants), account for benefits to different groups (including individual participants, taxpayers, and society overall), and create contextualized performance targets for individual programs.
  

For more information about the GWDC, click here.

Mark Your Calendar for Nov. 14 Meeting

Plan to attend the Governor’s Workforce Development Council meeting to be held jointly with the Minnesota Workforce Council Association and the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership Board. The joint meeting has been scheduled for Monday, Nov. 14, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) in St. Paul. DEED is located in the First National Bank Building, 332 Minnesota St. For more details, visit www.gwdc.org.  The agenda will be posted soon.

Key Publication Contacts

Kathy Sweeney
WIB Newsletter Director                                
651-297-5151
Kathy.Sweeney@state.mn.us

Irene Connors
WIB Newsletter Editor
651-259-7162
irene.connors@state.mn.us

We Need Your Feedback
We're trying to make this newsletter as timely and useful as we possibly can and, to accomplish that goal, we need to know what you want to know. We need and welcome any feedback you can offer – especially concerning topics of broad statewide or regional interest to the WIBs and all other partners. To register your questions, comments, complaints and suggestions, simply send an email to Kathy.Sweeney@state.mn.us. We'll do our best to address your concerns directly and use your feedback to help us develop articles for future editions of the newsletter.