August 13, 2010

Education, business connect the dots

It’s summertime and the living ain’t so easy. Our economic situation is still tentative, with many people still out of work and struggling to make ends meet.

Does that mean we stick our heads in the sand and wait for better times? Not at all. There is work to be done on all fronts to prepare our current and future workforce in the areas where jobs will be growing.

So, instead of focusing on what isn’t, let’s focus on what is being done and what is working. It’s progress by collaboration. Regionalism is becoming a reality. It has been talked about and discussed for years. But, just saying we want to “collaborate” or we want to work “regionally” doesn’t make it happen. It takes a vision, a common purpose and the political will to take it from “talk” to “do.”

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The economic development organizations in both Weld and Larimer counties have come together and are collaborating on projects around energy. With Colorado’s emphasis on growing the energy industry, Northern Colorado is positioning itself nicely as a region to encourage new business recruitment, development and expansion. More business, more jobs, more opportunity and a healthier economy.

The Colorado community college system is a coalition of 13 state community colleges working together to provide career and academic education across the state. They leverage programs, resources and knowledge across the colleges to better serve their students. They pursue strong industry partnerships to provide current intelligence for relative programs.

Community colleges are also extending many of their programs into high schools by offering dual-credit courses and aligning curriculum and programs with university programs for continued career ladders.

Colorado State University is reaching out to a broader community with satellite locations around the state for continuing education, making the programs more accessible to people who would not be able to attend traditional courses on campus. They are working closely with business and industry, bringing field experts into the classroom and connecting students with industry partners.

All Northern Colorado colleges, universities and even K-12 districts are doing more with online delivery for more flexibility in student accessibility that is not restricted to a specific time or location in order to participate.

College, district coalitions

Our four main Northern Colorado post secondary education institutes, CSU, University of Northern Colorado, Aims Community College and Front Range Community Collage formed a coalition two years ago to collaborate across institutes boundaries on progressive ways to address education for their students. Great minds, working together, to better serve the student base.

Twenty Northern Colorado school districts have just completed a legislative grant to find ways to leverage resources across district lines to better serve the student base, especially in times when funding is significantly diminished. The work has resulted in the development of a regional communication network that links school personnel and community partners on a variety of levels to help identify resources, issues, opportunities and manage collaborative partnerships. A regional strategy is being developed to focus on potential areas of leverage and support across the districts.

A new Larimer County Workforce Investment Board was created earlier this year and consists of economic development, education, a variety of large and small businesses and workforce services representatives. They are setting a new strategy for identifying industry skill needs and have chosen health care, energy and technology as industries to focus on initially.

They will be working closely with local businesses in each area of the targeted industries to understand trends, workforce needs and gaps, and engage educational representatives to evaluate how they can evolve curriculum and programs to meet the identified requirements. They will also be looking to gain knowledge about applicable skill sets of job and career opportunities to better provide relevant information and educational resources for individual career decisions.

In Vail last month at the Rocky Mountain Workforce Development Association Symposium, a large group of workforce representatives and vested interest parties from across the state met to talk about setting a statewide strategy for how to bring business needs together with educational services to provide relative skill development for our current and future workforce. A council of selected representatives from across Colorado will be convened to move the strategy forward.

The dots between industry, economic development, education, and the workforce are connecting and the links are getting stronger. More than ever, the line between our economic strength and a qualified workforce is becoming more visible, with quality education at the center. More jobs, a qualified workforce, a more prosperous future.

Kathy Gilliland owns DK Innovative Solutions, a consulting company focused on strategic partnerships for workforce development. She can be reached at 970-493-7783.

It’s summertime and the living ain’t so easy. Our economic situation is still tentative, with many people still out of work and struggling to make ends meet.

Does that mean we stick our heads in the sand and wait for better times? Not at all. There is work to be done on all fronts to prepare our current and future workforce in the areas where jobs will be growing.

So, instead of focusing on what isn’t, let’s focus on what is being done and what is working. It’s progress by collaboration. Regionalism is becoming a reality. It has been talked…

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