Last summer, EMSI completed a study of the Walla Walla region’s wine production and tourism cluster. Recently the Wall Street Journal ran this article that focuses on the leadership of Walla Walla Community College, which is arguably responsible for the industry’s rapid growth and which has sparked numerous similar programs at other community colleges across the country.

Among the figures cited in the WSJ article is the stunning result of EMSI’s study: that the wine production and tourism industry has saved the area’s economy from stagnation or decline in the past decade, and that in the next decade over 15% of the area’s jobs will be directly or indirectly dependent on it.

The story is a stellar example of how community colleges can become leaders in economic development–with the right mix of foresight, initiative, passion, and (let’s admit it) a bit of good luck.

Read EMSI’s full report (PDF)

Walla Walla Community College, Institute for Enology and Viticulture

Walla Walla Wine Cluster Economic Development Project

Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance

The Advisory Committee on Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economy—which is backed by the Commerce department and includes leaders of industry heavyweights such as Microsoft, 3M, IBM, UPS, and Wal-Mart—has released its first report on innovation metrics.

Among their recommendations are that federal agencies (Commerce, Labor, Census, IRS) step-up data sharing to improve industry analysis and that the Bureau of Economic Analysis collect new measures of industry inputs and productivity.

Read or download the report materials here.

(Via EDPro via BusinessWeek)

The Nashville Chamber of Commerce recently released an extensive study of the area’s labor market written by the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (download report materials here; read the press release here). The report covers population, industry, and occupation trends and forecasts for the greater Nashville area, in addition to a labor market supply/demand analysis that compares area college graduates to high-demand occupations.

The report, titled “Labor Market Opportunities in the Nashville Economic Market Area: An Assessment of the Region’s Labor Force Demand and Supply,” states that of the approximately 1.25 million working-age people in the Nashville region, about 853,000 people are participating in the labor force and 34,000 are seeking work (4 percent unemployment rate). The report concludes that the region could face a shortage of about 2,300 or more workers per year during the next decade as job creation outpaces the number of people available to work.

“We are looking at workforce supply and demand from a long-term, regional perspective,” said Tennessee Labor and Workforce Development Commissioner James Neeley. “To effectively support our regional economic development priorities, it is imperative that we align our education and training resources with our workforce development needs.”

The authors of the study chose to use EMSI’s Strategic Advantage web-based regional analysis tool (paired with EMSI’s Complete Employment dataset) because of its ease of use, geographic flexibility, inclusion of all types of jobs (not just those covered by unemployment insurance), and estimation of data points “suppressed” by publicly available sources.

Read the full story here.

A new study shows Western Iowa Tech Community College annually contributes more than $308 million to the Siouxland economy, equal to about 5.5 percent of the region’s total income.

“The report confirms the indispensable role that WITCC plays in the regional economy,” WITCC President Dr. Robert Dunker said. “And, what is equally important, the report establishes the college’s major impact on regional vitality by providing hard facts and dollar values using the most reliable methods available.”

Idaho-based EMSI/CCbenefits Inc., a leading provider of socioeconomic impact and strategic planning tools to community and technical colleges in the United States and Canada, conducted the study for Western Iowa Tech and the state’s other 14 community colleges.

Grant County EDC in Moses Lake, Washington is an excellent example of a rural county that has excelled in recruiting a diverse mix of innovative high-tech and manufacturing firms.

Grant County EDC has met this challenge head-on with an approach that combines ambitious goals, commitment to infrastructure improvements, and detailed understanding of the region’s economy. That’s why the county is now the choice location for 19 ongoing projects, from innovative manufacturing firms to high-tech data centers for Yahoo, Ask.com, Intuit,and Microsoft. The county has dropped its unemployment rate from a 10.1% high in 2001 to a 6.6% low in 2006. And between 2006 and 2007 alone, the EDC recruited approximately 1,000 new jobs. These new jobs will be added over a five year period and will have an estimated ripple effect of 1,050 additional indirect jobs.

Click here to read the full story (PDF): “It’s All About Jobs” in Grant County

On the heels of last week’s STEM Training & Employment Notice, the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration has announced $10 million in competitive grants for workforce boards to develop STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) initiatives. More information is available on grants.gov under funding opportunity #SGA-DFA-PY-07-03. Phase I applications are due March 11, with awards expected to be announced in the fall. Only workforce investment boards (WIBs) and WIB consortia are eligible.

As a recent post showed (“Analyzing your region’s STEM occupations”), EMSI’s tools, reports, and consulting services are extremely useful for analyzing any regional STEM workforce. For any geographic area composed of counties or ZIPs, we can show:

• The hierarchy of occupational pathways/ladders in the STEM “career cluster”
• Labor market trends and forecasts for STEM occupations
• Relative concentration of STEM jobs in an area compared to state(s) and the U.S.
• Wage information for STEM occupations
• Recent postsecondary graduations in STEM-related programs of study
• Industries most likely to employ STEM workers

For EMSI’s current WIB clients, our Customer Solutions staff is available now to help you profile your region’s STEM workforce using Strategic Advantage. Let EMSI’s solutions add a data-driven punch to your STEM grant application — this support is included free as part of your Strategic Advantage subscription.

For WIBs which are not currently EMSI clients, we are available to provide labor market data and analysis in support of your application. Our flexible, cost-effective consulting services can provide you with a report for your region in less than a week. Please contact us (1-866-999-3674, 8-5 Pacific) for details and pricing.

After last year’s placement on the Inc. 5000 list, Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. has been recognized as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies.

EMSI’s achievement was recently publicized in Forbes magazine on the “Awards Report” page produced by Dallas-based Chorley Publishing.

“We’d like to thank all of our customers for their loyalty, feedback, and support, which has made our company what it is today,” said EMSI CEO Andrew Crapuchettes. “Our customers have actively informed the rapid development of our products and services, helping us make the maze of socioeconomic data easily accessible to the decision makers who need it most.”

Noted regional economist M. Henry Robison founded the company in 1987 as Robison & Associates, which then became EMSI in 1995. EMSI initially specialized in building custom regional economic models, and began producing its own integrated data set to support them. In 2001, Robison and his colleague Kjell Christophersen formed CCbenefits Inc., an economic consulting firm specializing in providing impact studies and regional planning data for community and technical colleges. In 2007, the two companies officially merged under the EMSI name and now provide a diverse portfolio of economic data, software, and consulting solutions to state and local agencies, colleges and universities, workforce development boards, economic development councils, consultants, and private sector clients.

EMSI’s data-driven socioeconomic impact studies for colleges have been recognized in peer reviews as comprehensive, conservative, and accurate. EMSI has performed the studies for over 800 colleges in the U.S. and Canada, and has most recently entered the U.K. market with some 40 contracts already signed.

EMSI is also recognized as a leader in providing integrated economic data gathered from dozens of government sources and packaged in a powerful, user-friendly web-based analysis suite, Strategic Advantage. The tool’s user base has skyrocketed to over 2,500 since 2003, mostly from the state and local public and public-private sector, but also larger agencies such as the U.S. Treasury Department and corporations such as Fortune 500 staffing giant Manpower Inc.

Some highlights of EMSI’s work in the past year include:

• Official merger with CCbenefits Inc.;
• Release of major software and data upgrades to Strategic Advantage in February and October 2007;
• Integration of CCbenefits’ Community College Strategic Planner into EMSI’s Strategic Advantage to form a single modular analysis suite;
• Overseas expansion with completion of a U.K. pilot study measuring colleges’ economic impact, followed by dozens of contracts with other U.K. colleges;
• Partnership with Maher & Maher to serve WIRED regions, with subsequent ongoing consulting project in Newton, Iowa, where a major Whirlpool closure has threatened the region’s economy;
• Partnership with Purdue University in a major rural competitiveness research project funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

Even after seven years of rapid growth and new product development, EMSI remains focused on supporting and improving its current solutions and current client base.

“Last year, return business became the most important part of our revenue,” said Crapuchettes. “We have a very high renewal rate, which shows outstanding customer satisfaction. This remains a major focus area for us even as we consider entering new markets and developing new solutions.”

Broome Community College in New York has released the results of an EMSI impact study that concludes the college has a $290 million impact on the regional and state economy.

“This report details the role that the college plays in promoting economic development, enhancing students’ careers, and improving the overall quality of life,” said Dr. Spraggs. “The report was created with a vast array of data sources and standard, peer-reviewed analysis taking into account hard facts and dollar values. As the College is funded by students and local and state taxpayers, I believe it’s important for the community to know specifically what the financial contributions of the College are and what educational and economic benefits students and community members continue to receive.”

Read the full story here.

The Department of Labor’s Employment & Training Administration recently released a Training and Employment Notice titled “Building and Sustaining an Educated and Prepared STEM Workforce.” The notice provides a short introduction to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) occupations, along with the federal workforce system’s role in fostering it.

With that context, here at EMSI we thought this provided a good opportunity to show how you can analyze your region’s STEM workforce with EMSI’s Strategic Advantage (SA) web-based tool, which integrates dozens of sources to make custom regional labor market research fast, flexible, and simple. With SA, you can see vital statistics on jobs, wages, trends, projections, education levels, skills, and more for any occupation or occupation group, with comparisons to larger areas like states or the whole U.S. You can also see which regional industries are likely to employ workers in these occupations and and further analyze those industries. For a more education-oriented view, the tool allows you to see which regional training providers are offering courses and producing graduates in those occupations. And finally, you can view the occupations as a “career cluster” with various career ladders, or pathways, within it having various specializations.

For quick analysis, go to SA’s Educational Analyst module, and select the “Career Clusters” tool, then the “Career Cluster Data” report. Select timeframe and other options, making sure you choose to aggregate data by cluster. Generate the report and drill down in the “Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics” cluster for regional labor market information for STEM pathways and occupations. (Click the thumbnail for full-size image.)

To get started with more analysis, you’ll need to find a list of STEM occupations using the standard codes and titles used by the federal government. A great place to do this is at the Dept. of Labor’s O*NET site. In Strategic Advantage, go to the Career Pathways module and select the Occupational Analysis > Occupational Programs tool. This will allow you to create an occupation group using O*NET-SOC codes. Find and select the occupations and save the group as “STEM”.

With this list of STEM occupations (and with the individual occupations within it), you can use SA’s Career Pathways module to:

1. View O*NET data on knowledge, skills, and abilities (Occupational Analysis > Occupational Competencies)
2. Compare two occupations’ knowledge, skill, and ability requirements (Occupational Analysis > Compare Occupations)
3. See regional educational institutions that offer related programs (Occupational Analysis > Occupational Programs)
4. See the regional “labor pool” of occupations are compatible with certain STEM occupations (Transition Workers > Into Occupation)
5. Create maps of postsecondary completions in related programs (EMSI GIS)

To just get labor market information, you’ll have to define the list using plain SOC codes in Strategic Advantage’s Economic Forecaster module. These are the same as O*NET-SOC codes except without the 2-digit decimal extension, which allows O*NET to have slightly more detailed occupational categories. With this list, you’ll be able to:

1. See which postsecondary courses of study are linked to these occupations (Educational Analyst > Find Programs)
2. View extensive regional labor market reports with jobs, wages, trends, and projections (Economic Forecaster > Occupation tool > Jobs by Occupation, Occupation Report)
3. See which regional industries employ the most workers in STEM (Economic Forecaster > Occupation tool > Inverse Staffing Patterns)
4. Create maps using occupational data (EMSI GIS).

Here’s an example of chemical engineering jobs in California:

This is just a quick introduction to some of the capabilities of Strategic Advantage. To learn more, current users are encouraged to browse the online help within the tool, or take advantage of EMSI’s free, unlimited Customer Solutions support service. Prospective users can browse our main site for more information or tour videos.

For either Sales or Customer Solutions, feel free to call EMSI at (866) 999-3674 (8am to 5pm Pacific).

Here’s a sampling of workforce, education, and economic development news from the holidays:

• Dept. of Labor / Employment and Training Administration plans to examine the net impact of WIA Title I programs (link)
• “Bio-science” gains a foothold in Ohio (link)
• Large workforce gap looms in North Carolina (link)
• Oklahoma releases Employer Survey Report (link)
• Are economic impact studies good for the arts? (A pro and con view)
• Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation releases national and state-specific economic impact studies of hunting and angling (link)
• Boston College releases Phase II of The National Study of Business Strategy and Workforce Development, focusing on the employers’ awareness and response to the challenge of an aging workforce (link)