Q: How would you describe your marching orders in your new job?
A: We are in a pretty significant downturn, but we aren’t going to be here forever. Colorado is predicted to pull out quicker than most states. Are our training programs, schools and state agencies in step with what the business-training needs will be in two or three years?
The Jobs Cabinet was created at the beginning of Gov. Bill Ritter’s administration and went all over Colorado. It combines state departments, businesses and educators. We went around to figure out how we rank as a state and to look at our programs and how integrated they are in serving business.
What we need to work on is having our different systems linked and being business-driven and not government-driven. And we need to do it in one voice instead of four or five voices. At the end of the day what we are all doing is training our workforce for tomorrow. The employer will engage all day long as long as they seen benefit. If they don’t see benefit, you have wasted their time.
Q: Where do you see the new jobs coming from?
A: You have health care and new energy, the solar and wind companies. Some manufacturing is coming in as secondary feeder to these. Together they are creating a lot of jobs, several thousand jobs. Are they hiring at the volume others are shrinking? No. But in a few years you will see a balance. We need to capture and benefit from what we have done well. We have to support it and grow it.
Q: Some people may end up out of work for two or three years. How do we keep these workers from getting “rusty?”
A: It requires activating the workforce and retraining them. Community colleges have more students than they ever had. People are going back in to re-educate and retrain into different fields. You are going to get dormant industries that come back, but a lot of those workers will have switched fields. You are going have a double whammy.
Edited for length and clarity by Aldo Svaldi.
