Department looks for return on investment

The U.S. Department of Labor expects real, measurable results from its $5 million investment in the Southeast Missouri Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development, or WIRED, initiative, assistant Secretary of Labor Emily Stover-DeRocco said Tuesday during a visit to the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center.

Stover-DeRocco kicked of the three-year effort by the Workforce Investment Board and the Southeast Missouri Economic Development Alliance at a daylong summit of business, educators and development agencies at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center.

In her keynote speech to about 125 people, Stover-DeRocco said the 14 counties included in the initiative traditionally relied on farming, mining and manufacturing to provide livelihoods for the region's workers. But with the world economy in a period of transformation, she said, the latest surveys show that companies are demanding a well-trained workforce in areas where they want to do business.

The WIRED initiative, she said, is designed to "support development of a talent base that we believe will drive economic development."

In a news conference after her speech, Stover-DeRocco said the success of the initiative will be shown in new job opportunities, increased wages and employee retention.

"One thing we will not tolerate is just the dispersal of the grant money to the strategic partners," she said.

The grant for Southeast Missouri was one of 13 announced in June. The grant was part of the third round of WIRED initiative grants that have targeted areas as diverse as Southern California -- including Los Angeles and San Diego -- or Eastern Michigan -- including Detroit -- and largely rural stretches of Arkansas and Montana.

The specific goals for training, jobs and income growth have not been set, said Scott Stattler, manager of business and industry for the Workforce Investment Board. The daylong summit was intended to brainstorm about those issues to provide guidance, he said.

The first step, he said, is to assess the skills and weaknesses of the area, identify economic opportunities and threats and analyze the resulting information. But the objectives of the goals need to include keeping young people in the area after school, he said.

"We are losing too many," Stattler said. "We are educating them, and they are moving out of the region."

The 14 counties included in the WIRED initiative are Cape Girardeau, Scott, Bollinger, Perry, Ste. Genevieve, St. Francois, Iron, Madison, Butler, Stoddard, Mississippi, New Madrid, Dunklin and Pemiscot.

The region includes areas with some of the highest rates of poverty in the state and nation. Of the 14 counties, only four -- Cape Girardeau, Perry, Bollinger and Ste. Genevieve -- had July unemployment rates at or below the state average of 5 percent. The highest unemployment rates were in the Bootheel counties of Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot and Dunklin.

The initiative is not just another "run of the mill grant program," said Rod Nunn, director of the state Division of Workforce Development.

By raising educational expectations and developing the skills of area workers, the region can become a producer, rather than a consumer, of high technology products, Nunn said.

"We need a trained work force to go with our other assets," he said. "We need to retool a system that is decades old."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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