Task force seeks funds
Matthew Weaver/Columbia Basin HeraldMembers of the Operation Task Force including, from left to right, Clyde Rasmussen, Allan Peterson, Bridget Vidonne and Jim Sperry, look over information at the meeting Friday morning.
Employee recruiting efforts move forward
COLUMBIA BASIN - There were more people in attendance at Friday's Operations Task Force meeting than have been in a little while.
The task force, which aims to increase the amount of skilled labor in the area to meet the needs of area businesses, gathered Friday morning in Big Bend Community College's ATEC Building. About 18 people were in attendance.
Mary Shannon, director of the community college's Professional Technical Outreach Advising/Tech Prep, updated the group on efforts to apply for a $90,000 industry skills panel grant, creating a skills panel to represent the area.
Shannon passed around the group's application, complete with letters of support from community members, for the group to look over.
She said the funding would include hiring a part-time coordinator of the task force's efforts, and said the skills panel needs a chairperson from the area's industries to be a point of contact in order to notch up to a higher level of progress.
The group also received an update on a Perkins grant.
During the hourlong meeting, those in attendance urged the need for in-need industry to reach out to area youth, focusing upon those students who do not intend to attend college, and promote to the students, their parents and high school counselors the opportunities available.
"We need to address the school counselors, prepare them to accept the idea they need to emphasize some of the technical education, not just going on to a four-year degree," Felix Ramon agreed. "We need to educate the parents to the possibilities there for the kids, and then we need to educate the kids. But we also need to educate the people who are out of school, who have dropped out or whatever, and say, 'If you come back and you get this training, you can turn your life around and work.'"
Ramon believes the potential exists to take care of the area's labor problems by doing so locally, and not necessarily recruiting from outside of the area.
Dustan Knauss shared the success of a recent job fair in the Othello area, in which Othello industries shared their job needs and opportunities with area students and their parents.
The task force group also discussed the merits of hiring employees who are over 55 years of age.
Training and marketing subcommittees scheduled meetings before the next task force meeting, taking place Nov. 16, to discuss one or two activities they would come up with to market opportunities.
"It was very positive, people seem motivated to go forward and we have a really good cross-section of industry and education," Center for Business and Industry Services Executive Director Allan Peterson said following the meeting.
"I think this group is now starting to take on what they need to do and starting to get a vision," community college Dean of Professional Technical Education Programs Clyde Rasmussen said. "We've got to get this information out to potential employees. We're on task and more involved now, we're ready to take this message out to the community."