A recent article published in the Northern Colorado Business Report:

GREELEY - Aims Community College contributes $1 billion per year to the regional economy, according to a new report.

Idaho-based research firm Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. analyzed Aims’ impacts through local purchases including wages; spending of students who travel from outside of the region; and the increase in the local workforce’s skill base.

“We’ve always known the benefits Aims provides to the region, but it’s very impressive to have it quantified, to have the tangible numbers,” said Marsi Liddell, president of Aims, in a prepared statement.

The report highlighted such benefits as a $169 annual income increase for every credit a student completes at Aims; an 18 percent return on investment for students’ time and money; and a 7.8 percent return on investment for state and local taxpayers. The report also quantified the impact of a reduced crime rate and lower welfare and unemployment.

For the second year in a row, Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. has been named in the Inc. 5,000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies, which is compiled using 3-year percentage revenue growth. EMSI’s current ranking of 1,938 improved on last year’s 2,107th spot.

EMSI’s CEO Andrew Crapuchettes credited the company’s growth to continual innovation and total dedication to client service. EMSI currently provides consulting services, web-based tools, and reports to a diverse array of clients in higher education, economic/workforce development, government, and the private sector. Recent success can be attributed to growth in the company’s two flagship products:

• Since 2000, EMSI’s Socioeconomic Impact (SEIM) report framework has been applied to nearly 600 community and technical colleges in the U.S., Canada, and (since 2007) the U.K. In the U.S. alone, EMSI has served approximately half of all public 2-year colleges in the nation.
• Since its introduction in 2003, EMSI’s Strategic Advantage labor market data analysis suite has been used by thousands of researchers at hundreds of client organizations. The system is currently being expanded to include U.K. data, with the official product launch planned for November 2008.

Looking to the future, EMSI is actively making investments to pursue other ways in which to provide its clients with more complete information and analysis solutions delivered via cutting-edge web applications.

In this op-ed for Forbes magazine, William D. Green (CEO of Accenture) uses his own background to argue that community colleges are one of America’s most valuable and overlooked assets.

Over the years, I’ve come to view community colleges and other two-year institutions as the Cinderella story of our education system–doing the hard work, quietly, without much fanfare. They provide a pathway to the American dream for millions of people, whether they enter the workforce immediately afterward or decide to continue their education.

Read the full article here.

EMSI is pleased to announce that this autumn’s Strategic Advantage update will include the addition of gross regional product (GRP) estimates to the Economic Impact module. GRP, which is also called “regional GDP” and defined as the market value of all goods and services produced within a given area over a specific period of time, is a good measure of the size, income, and productivity of a regional economy. EMSI’s new methodology, which to our knowledge is the first of its kind and available from no other source, allows GRP to be calculated for county-level, custom-defined regions as well as metropolitan statistical areas. Moreover, the key components of GRP—earnings, profits, taxes, and subsidies—will be shown separately (all in nominal dollar amounts). The data will be offered for the years 2002 to 2007.

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Education

Eileen Storck
Director of Enrollment Management, Indian River State College
Florida
Eileen Storck, Director of Enrollment Management, is helping Indian River State College lead the way in Florida’s transition to a new state college system which will play a vitally important role in the state’s workforce preparation and economic development. Indian River State College, formerly Indian River Community College, is using Strategic Advantage to align baccalaureate programs to the workforce needs of both the region and state. As Eileen reflects on the recent changes, she states, “As a state college, we have a responsibility to provide degree programs that will lead our students into high-skill, high-wage, and high-demand occupations. One big difference is that now we research a broader area as we address potential gaps in the workforce.” As Eileen provides detailed data to the baccalaureate program sub-committee, Indian River State College can make strategic, data-driven decisions on four-year degree programs—from the very beginning.

Jeanne Fadelli
Research Analyst, Santa Rosa Junior College
California
Jeanne Fadelli, Research Analyst at Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC), uses Strategic Advantage to prepare Institutional Effectiveness reports and the Community Needs Assessment (CNA). EMSI’s bi-annual data updates provide the most current data available, which is helpful for Institutional Effectiveness reports on time-sensitive issues like the “District Population Served by Gender, Age and Ethnicity” and “Population Participation Rates by ZIP Code” for the college’s annual Fact Book. The CNA includes detailed regional industry, occupation, and demographic detail for strategic planning purposes.  With SA’s integrated data and flexible regions, Jeanne could focus on the projected regional occupation growth and decline, as well as follow high school enrollment patterns and demographic trends.  This CNA will serve as a guide for outreach to targeted demographic groups, and it will also inform program planning.

Brett Riley
Director of Grants, Columbia Basin College
Washington
When Brett Riley hears of a grant opportunity, his first stop is Strategic Advantage. Before he does anything else, he uses SA to identify whether or not Columbia Basin College has a need for a particular grant opportunity. Brett says, “Using SA makes my job significantly easier, since I can find everything I need in one place, from start to finish.”  Recently, Brett helped Columbia Basin College win a grant for an Apprenticeship Growth Funding program. To accomplish this, he based the projection years on the grant funding period and looked at the forecasted demand for the specific occupations in the region. Then, he used EMSI GIS to visually display that his region has a 2% greater demand for these jobs than the rest of the state. This convincing data and clear presentation gave Columbia Basin College the competitive advantage they needed to win the grant.

Workforce Development

Rebecca Bloomquist
Special Projects Coordinator - High Country Workforce Development Board,
High Country Council of Governments
North Carolina
Rebecca Bloomquist uses Strategic Advantage as a resource for discovering regional trends and making recommendations based on these trends through allocation of workforce resources and strategic planning. She is currently using SA to perform a wage study for a small town in High Country’s service area. Stakeholders in this town fear that they are losing employees to surrounding counties due to lack of competitive wages. Rebecca will use SA’s Occupation reports to compare this small town to the state as well as surrounding counties and verify whether or not this town’s wages are lower than those surrounding counties. Once the report is completed, she can make wage recommendations to make this town more competitive with the surrounding regions.

Eddie Foreman
CEO, Central Oklahoma Workforce Investment Board
Oklahoma
Eddie Foreman, CEO of Central Oklahoma WIB, uses Strategic Advantage to proactively plan for future workforce needs. For example, he recently used SA to confirm that without any intervention, central Oklahoma could face a workforce crisis in several years. He found that by 2014, central Oklahoma is projected to grow by 20,000 jobs, but the working age population is only expected to grow by 3,000.  With such an immense difference, Foreman knows that creative strategies are necessary to counteract the workforce decline.   Instead of merely targeting populations outside of their region, it has led the WIB to sponsor several training programs inside of correctional facilities within the region, and the results have been positive so far, with former convicts transitioning into the declining workforce. As the workforce crisis looms, Foreman proves that proactive and creative solutions are a must for successful economies.

Economic Development

Jim Held
Senior Economist, Empire State Development
New York
Jim Held, Senior Economist with Empire State Development in Albany, New York, doesn’t know what he would do without the flexibility of Strategic Advantage. He says that one challenge of being an economic developer in New York is trying to keep up with the changing regional distinctions between Upstate and Downstate (i.e., metropolitan New York City).  With 62 counties in the state, there are many possible definitions for the two mega-regions.  Creating a region in SA is so simple that Held is not fazed by creating and combining different regions as policy needs change, and this helps him stay on the cutting edge of economic development in his state.

The Cape Cod, Massachusetts economy is primarily driven by small businesses in the hospitality and retail sectors. Many of these businesses are sole proprietors, and 90% have fewer than 20 people. This creates a unique labor market and workforce environment, according to David Augustinho, Executive Director at Cape and Islands Workforce Investment Board.

Augustinho found that most small businesses in his area promote their employees from associates to managers with little or no training. Because of the relatively small size of the businesses, they do not have the resources to provide the kind of customized management training programs not normally found in areas dominated by larger companies. To help fill this resource gap, Augustinho applied for and won a $500,000 grant for cross-sector management training from the Massachusetts Workforce Competitiveness Trust Fund. Though the Fund is primarily aimed at sector-specific training programs, Augustinho successfully argued that a cross-sector management training program would provide significant returns to small business owners.

Read the full case study (PDF): Cape & Islands WIB Uses Strategic Advantage to Win Training Grant