Wade leads push for adult tech training

Columbia has always prided itself on its abundant opportunities for higher education. However, compared with other college towns with similar demographics, Columbia is missing a crucial component in its education infrastructure: a technical training facility for adults.

Columbia, like Lafayette, Ind., Lincoln, Neb., Champaign-Urbana, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa, is home to what’s known as a First Tier Research University, one or more colleges and a highly regarded K-12 public school system. But Columbia’s peer cities also have post-secondary adult workforce development and training facilities.

Jerry Wade, the City Council’s Fourth Ward Representative, said the need for Columbia to add post-secondary adult career training is urgent. “In the world of smart work economics, the education infrastructure is, I would argue, the single most important component of a community’s infrastructure for sustained economic success,” he said.

Wade also admonishes the Columbia community for its late arrival to the technical training table. “Columbia let itself get trapped in a college prep mindset rather than a skilled work mindset,” Wade said. “You’ll not find a high knowledge community, other than Columbia, that does not have major opportunities for work force development and technical education.”

Headed by Wade and Arden Boyer-Stephens, director of the Columbia Area Career Center, a task force formed in the fall of 2008 to begin the process of identifying gaps, exploring options and setting goals. Other members of the committee include Greg Steinhoff, Bernie Andrews, Terry Barnes and Kristi Ray.

“We put together a little ad hoc group to see if we could take the first steps in the process – a group of people who normally don’t talk to each other. We spent the first two or three meetings learning to talk to each other,” Wade said.

Group members agree that business, government and the existing educational communities all need to buy in to the process to create opportunities for adult workforce training.

Bernie Andrews, executive vice president of Regional Economic Development Inc., or REDI, explained the economic development perspective. “A quality workforce is a critical component of any type of business,” he said. “The task force wants to make sure we have a dependable and larger pool of trained workers for the companies already here and will be able to promote this trained workforce to attract new businesses.”

Many of the task force members believe the addition of an adult workforce training center to Columbia’s current menu of offerings to companies looking to relocate here will be significant. “We feel that Columbia/Boone County has all the educational components needed to support economic development except for high-quality technical training,” Boyer-Stephens says.

Typical programs might include mid-level management training, office administration, computer information technology, electronics repair, industrial and manufacturing training, construction trades, research technology and health occupations. The task force has identified potential program offerings but will wait on data collected locally to determine specifically what mid-Missouri needs.

In addition to technical training, the task force envisions opportunities for helping the underemployed and unskilled, including offering coursework in GED preparation, adult basic literacy and, in general, sharpening employability skills.

Core values identified by the task force members are the cornerstone of the strategic plan. The core values of the organization structure stipulate that it be: demand driven, adult friendly, accessible, learner-centered, innovative, at the cutting edge and endorsed by business and industry.

Task force members have had contact with all existing mid-Missouri educational facilities in its preliminary discussions, including Moberly Area Community College and Linn Tech. “Existing institutions are all now on board that this is what we need; we are not competing with them,” Wade says.

Currently, Linn Tech works closely with the Columbia Area Career Center, and avoiding duplication of services is a priority for the task force. “We will not duplicate services/programs in whatever is developed for Columbia/Boone County,” Boyer-Stephens says.

Despite the task force members’ unanimous claim that Boone County needs to fill this educational void, members also realize that data will have to be gathered to attract funding for the project.

Consequently, the existing task force will hold its final meeting July 28. The next goal is creating a survey for local employers and institutions to find out whether the anecdotal evidence the task force has gathered is accurate.

“The next step will be to have a skills gap analysis conducted to see what skill sets are needed for the present and the future,” Boyer-Stephens says.

However, there is no funding for such an analysis. Finding funding for the analysis will be the task of the incoming members, Wade said. Depending on the level of inquiry, the cost of performing the needs assessment could be expensive. One bid has come in at between $40,000 and $120,000.

While the current task force has laid the ground work, the project is still very much in the conceptual phase. “We are not even talking about buildings or campuses or capital campaigns yet, but we will be looking for funding for data development to underpin the strategic plan,” Wade says. Yet he is optimistic that people will support funding of the project. “It’s very simple. A community succeeds or fails on the quality of its workforce.”