Cochise County, Arizona’s Daily Dispatch reports that Cochise College and Cochise County Workforce Development One-Stop Centers are working together to bring recruit workers for healthcare employers in their region. Read the article here. Their work drew the attention of state’s Department of Education, who awarded them a significant grant to aid the project. They’re drawing primarily on Adult Education students who face various personal impediments to training.Cochise serves as another example of the importance of Workforce and Education pooling resources and working together to aid local economies and workers.

Maher & Maher, Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. (EMSI) and FutureWork Systems (FWS) today jointly announced the Regional Workforce Intelligence project, a strategic technical assistance solution for regional planning based on WIRED principles. Drawing on the unique expertise of each partner, the Regional Workforce Intelligence solution builds regions through strong project management, expanded social networking, integrated economic and workforce analysis, and unique performance management tools.

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The Census Bureau has launched a new site to create public awareness for the upcoming 2007 Economic Census. The site houses industry snapshots for featured industries, encouragements for businesses to fill out the census forms when they get them, and other things.

The “other thing” that sparked our interest was in the “Industry Ratios” reports, which link over to the NAICS definitions for the all of the industry codes—a nice resource and available here. At the two-digit NAICS super-sector level, the description is pretty lengthy and give some insight into the thought behind the classifications, as we see here for Manufacturing:

The boundaries of manufacturing and the other sectors of the classification system can be somewhat blurry. The establishments in the manufacturing sector are engaged in the transformation of materials into new products. Their output is a new product. However, the definition of what constitutes a new product can be somewhat subjective. As clarification, the following activities are considered manufacturing in NAICS: Milk bottling and pasteurizing . . .

The site allows you to drill down for higher digit detail and gives progressively shorter industry descriptions down to the six-digit level. It’s a great resource for research into some of the methodology behind the codes and finding your way through some of the trickier industry distinctions.

The South Florida Business Journal reports that the Sunshine State has brought their already formidable 2006 10th place ranking for their workforce training programs up to number 3 in a 2007 poll by Expansion Management. The study bases the ranking on the opinions of more than 80 site selectors across the nation. Georgia ranked #1 and Alabama #2.

Workforce Florida seems to be behind this surge. They’ve made huge advances, bringing together the major players in their communities. Their three major programs, Employ Florida, Quick Response Training, and Incumbent Worker Training, bridge the gap between workers and jobs and connect entities like community colleges and workforce boards to ensure that workforce skills match employer needs.

Florida’s work proves that site selectors notice and value regional integration of workforce and education.

The Northern Virgina Workforce Investment Board’s SkillSource Group, in partnership with Dr. Kenneth Poole of the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (affiliated with C2ER), has completed an 18-month BRAC impact study for the area in and around Fort Belvoir and Quantico Marine Base.

EMSI’s Strategic Advantage provided the “heavy-lifting” economic modeling, including the estimates of workforce impacts. Strategic Advantage was selected for the project after an extensive evaluation and comparison with the RIMS II model, because EMSI’s model “provided more extensive estimates of likely industry- and occupation-specific impacts.”

Read the SkillSource press release and the C2ER newsletter article.

This article recently published in the Community College Times demonstrates how colleges can use CCbenefits’ Socioeconomic Impact (SEIM) study to demonstrate the real value they bring to their communities. The major example is Housatonic CC in Bridgeport, CT.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao today announced the launch of a third competition for President Bush’s Community-Based Job Training Grants. Public and tribal community and technical colleges, community college districts, state community college systems and One-Stop Career Centers will compete for awards totaling approximately $125 million.

Read the DOLETA press release.

Fast Company recently highlighted Southwest Michigan First, an economic development group out of Kalamazoo Michigan that was included in this year’s Fast 50 lineup.

They are acknowledged in this article for their innovative response to Pfizer closing down their local R & D branch in 2003. Fearing scientists would leave the area without job opportunities, they managed to raise $50 million (an impressive amount for a town of its size) to start a for-profit venture fund to support life-science startups. Two weeks after the announced layoffs, the group opened a business incubator that within three months was home to 15 new life-science companies. Four of them are graduating from the incubator this year and moving into bigger offices. One has already made breakthroughs in cancer research.

EMSI has completed a cluster analysis report on the wine industry in Washington State’s Walla Walla valley, which is booming thanks to smart economic development strategies and the local college’s Institute for Enology and Viticulture. The area is one of the nation’s hottest emerging appellations, producing wines with consistently high ratings and drawing an increasing number of tourists from around the nation. The city of Walla Walla has won national recognition for its historical assets, arts, and culture, and was named one of the top 5 “Best Places to Retire” by CNN Money magazine.

EMSI’s study looks at the past, present, and future of the area’s wine production and tourism cluster and concludes that the wine industry cluster has saved the region from economic stagnation or even decline.

Read the report here.

Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc. (EMSI) is pleased to announce that the governing board of the States’ Career Cluster Initiative has endorsed EMSI as a preferred product provider. The decision follows EMSI’s recent upgrade to its web-based economic analysis suite, Strategic Advantage (SA). The States’ Career Clusters Initiative is backed by the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc).

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