A workforce strategy announced this fall could change the way Southwest Indiana does business.
A little more than 50 years ago, Evansville was rocked by a series of departing companies that created an economic dark age and the loss of thousands of jobs. Business and community leaders formed the Evansville Industrial Foundation to offset the disturbing decline (“Building a Foundation,” February/March 2008). The organization cemented Evansville as a manufacturing hub, and even before Whirlpool executives announced in August the departure of its North Side refrigeration factory and the loss of 1,100 positions by mid-2010, a handful of business and economic leaders were eyeing new opportunities for Southwest Indiana. Backed by a three-year grant, their final initiative, Project GREEN, culminates this January, and from it, the strategic plans they’ll announce by mid-October aim to bring a new economic climate — with more jobs — to the community.
When Ron Keeping, the chairman of the Grow Southwest Indiana Regional Workforce Board, attended an energy conference in June 2008, he learned what leaders in Austin, Texas, did three decades ago. They communicated, collaborated, and attracted industry titans such as Motorola, Advanced Micro Devices, and Applied Materials. Their work transformed Austin “from a sleepy college town to technopolis,” as Austin’s chamber of commerce describes it. The technopolis has 3,300 tech companies with 100,000 employees.
With this story in mind, Keeping realized: Southwest Indiana leaders can train a workforce to match the skills of a specific industry, and the energy industry — an area projected to grow by 44 percent by 2030 — shows great potential. “Put those two together,” says Keeping. “That’s the essential concept” of Project GREEN: a bold, new initiative from the Grow Southwest Indiana Regional Workforce Board, a workforce development organization partnering with economic development leaders...
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