Colorado delegation discusses common issues at SLC exchange

Sometimes rivals, sometimes partners, representatives from Colorado and Utah gathered recently in Salt Lake City to focus on the latter relationship. More than 160 business and civic leaders from the Denver metro area exchanged ideas with Utah leaders about common issues during the three-day Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation Leadership Exchange.

Sometimes rivals, sometimes partners, representatives from Colorado and Utah gathered recently in Salt Lake City to focus on the latter relationship.

More than 160 business and civic leaders from the Denver metro area exchanged ideas with Utah leaders about common issues during the three-day Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation Leadership Exchange. Amid a few playful digs about water consumption and which state offers the best skiing, much of the discussion focused on the development of workforce talent and business’ role in improving it.

“I think this country has done a terrible job at this,” Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told the crowd. “I would look at the incredible popularity — I’m not trying to irritate anybody, I’m keeping this apolitical — but Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump reflect how many people are frustrated and discouraged and unhappy in that their lives are not going the way they thought, they are making the same money or less than they were 15 years ago, and a lot of that is we just haven’t figured out, when technology or outsourcing a profession leaves people behind, we haven’t figured out how to get young people and those people that have lost those jobs into the new jobs.”
Both states have developed programs designed to get young people interested and involved in careers sooner.

“In education, what we’re all looking to do with young people is turn that switch and find the ‘great’ within all of them, and my experience in education over the last 25 years tells me it’s there,” said Noel Ginsberg, president and CEO of Denver-based Intertech Plastics and chairman of the Business Experiential-Learning (BEL) Commission. “How can you find it and develop it?”

Ginsberg and some others in Colorado are attempting to replicate the strong apprenticeship environment found in Switzerland and apply it in Colorado. One result is the CareerWise Colorado program, which aims to have 20,000 high school students over the next 10 years in two- and four-year apprenticeships for advanced, high-demand jobs in advanced manufacturing, information technology, financial services and business operations. Armed with $9.5 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies and JPMorgan Chase, the program launched in September and organizers hope to take the pilot program statewide.

“When you invest in the workforce starting earlier, you end up having the employees that you need when you need them,” Ginsberg said.
The program will enable a student to be paid perhaps $800 a month at work while going to school and getting college credit.

“We want to give kids 21st century skills. They can’t get that necessarily in the classroom as well as they can get that with us in business,” he added.

Businesses will get the workforce they need to be successful and competitive in a global environment, while the students will get a meaningful education, he said. Participating students likely will stay with their employers longer and companies will desire them because they will know the work and will be able to advance quicker through the company food chain.

But Ginsberg and others stressed that businesses must get involved for CareerWise Colorado and other programsfor them to be successful.
“We’re used to being advisors and consultants and then ultimately critics,” Ginsberg said of businesses, “but we really haven’t seen ourselves as participants, and so in Colorado what we’re looking to do is change that thought process in business. …
“For this to work, we need businesses to think differently, so what I ask of the Denver contingent and certainly with the Utah people, we want to work with you and learn together how we can build a better system of training and education for our young people. It’s good for them, and it’s good for our businesses.”

Ben Hart, managing director of urban and rural business services at the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), told the audience about Utah’s “Pathways” programs, which are designed to get K-12 students an education that will offer “stackable” credentials that count toward future degrees and certifications while providing experiential learning so that students can enter the workforce at any time with a marketable skill and certification. With programs in place for the aerospace, diesel and medical innovation industries, Utah is looking to replicate the programs into other industries.

“Work-based learning — whether it’s called an apprenticeship, an internship, an externship, whatever the vernacular is — it has the same common part, and that is, how do you give kids an opportunity and a framework so that they can better choose what career pathways they ultimately want to go into?” Hart said.

“It’s something that we’re getting a lot of momentum around. We see a lot of positive energy around this, but at the heart of this is industry. We’ve got to have our industry partners to step up and be willing to provide these experiences for students.”