By Erica Wright
The Birmingham Times
A coalition of business, education and civic groups on Tuesday introduced a report and a campaign focused on increasing economic development and workforce development in the Greater Birmingham.
“Building (it) Together” is focused on aligning education, economic development and workforce development in the seven-county Birmingham region including Bibb, Blount, Chilton, Jefferson, Shelby, St. Clair and Walker counties.
Recommendations from the report include expanding co-op and alternate training opportunities, encourage employers to reconsider credential requirements and strive for increased equity through nontraditional means, like IT boot camps.
The initiative began two years ago when the Bold Goals Coalition of Central Alabama started the Workforce Action Network to address critical needs for workforce development.
“The Workforce Action Network realized early on that we didn’t have the trends or data information to strategically address our workforce development issues, so after studying similar efforts around the country, the network commissioned Burning Glass Technologies to analyze our market as they had done so successfully in Pittsburgh,” said Bill Jones, co-chair of the Bold Goals Coalition Education Steering Committee.
The program is crucial because the Greater Birmingham region, though resilient, it is falling behind other southeastern cities like Nashville and Atlanta.
Building (it) Together’s lead partners include Alabama Possible, Alabama Power, Birmingham Business Alliance, Central Six AlabamaWorks!, Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, Innovate Birmingham, Jefferson State Community College, United Way of Central Alabama and University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
“The name, Building (it) Together is important for two primary reasons, first is that it suggests that the report is just a starting point and the most work will need to take place from you,” said Jones. “For months going forward, the Network will continue to take feedback from the region and develop strategic action plans through that. This is something that we will be building over a long-term, this is not a quick action.
“Second, Building (it) Together communicates the opportunity for collaborative decision making between industry and education, so we develop the assets, the talents, the ‘it’ necessary to drive job growth in our region for many years.”
During the kickoff event at the Alabama Workforce Training Center, Ray Watts, president of UAB, said, “We want to make sure that we partner together to train a skilled and highly educated and motivated workforce. This initiative that we are launching will enable us to do just that, but can only be successful through partnership of organizations and educational institutions with our industry and leading companies,” said Watts.
Part of their partnership with the coalition, Watts said UAB has made a commitment in the last year to double the number of computer science engineers over the next five years for the workforce.
Kristina Scott, Executive Director of Alabama Possible also spoke and said, “Alabama does a great job for the group of people that it does a great job for, but we’re leaving a lot of potential on the table when we do that . . . so we can do things the way we’ve always done them but I want to be an advocate to expand what the pie looks like to give more people a seat at the table.”
Network volunteers will coordinate region-wide community presentation on the findings and the presentations and conversations will take place throughout June, July and August.
For more information and access to the report visit buildingittogether.com.
