Focusing on developing workforce in St. Mary’s

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

While Southern Maryland isn’t part of the region most impacted by BRAC (Ft. Meade is in Anne Arundel County, Aberdeen Proving Grounds is in Harford County), we have fresh experience from the first BRAC rounds in the 1990s, which ultimately brought 10,000 jobs to the area. Patuxent River Naval Air Station, its tenant commands including NAVAIR and NAWCAD, and outlying Webster Field in St. Inigoes combine to form the single largest employer in the St. Mary’s County and the tri-county region where some 22,000 work every day.

With this consolidation of skill, talent, and physical assets like the Air Combat Environment Test and Evaluation Facility, Pax River is now a premier center of naval aviation excellence. Concentrating this capability here has allowed program growth to be steady and strong, which will only increase in the coming years with major programs such as the F-35 Lightning II, VH-71 Presidential Helicopter, and a variety of unmanned aviation vehicles and systems, among others. To fulfill future program requirements, there is a need for hundreds of specialized jobs in the engineering and related technical fields, along with those in business, economics and finance to help manage these programs.

Several initiatives are under way. One common theme is for a homegrown approach to workforce creation. Key to this is the STEM Academies at elementary, middle and high schools through an excellent collaboration between the public schools and Pax River. A related effort is Starbase Academy. Yet another initiative is the local, regional and now national robotics competitions and the deepening engineering offerings by the Dr. James A. Forrest Career and Technology Center. Several Forrest Center students will work as interns this summer through a special arrangement with local employers. These efforts will combine to produce more local talent to Pax River and the contractor community.

At the higher education level, the College of Southern Maryland, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Southern Maryland Higher Education Center are all expanding offerings in response to the needs of the technical management community. One area where there’s collective emphasis is an effort to bring the last two years of engineering programs in aerospace and mechanical engineering offered by the University of Maryland. This effort would dovetail with CSM’s current engineering program and be delivered at the higher education center. Pax River would provide labs, facilities, student internships, research appointments by faculty and other support efforts to supplement the program.

For the person just entering or re-entering the workforce who may lack essential skills, the Jobs Connection Program provided by the Community Development Corporation in Lexington Park has assisted numerous job-seekers develop a resume, conduct a skills assessment, complete job readiness training, search for work and in many cases secure a job. With the recent reinstatement of the Southern Maryland Workforce Investment Board, these services will be expanded to Leonardtown to enable more of the county to take advantage of them.

Finally, scholarships offered by several local organizations help increase access to college for more and more students. This is the case in traditional fields of study and more specialized fields like engineering, health care, and skilled trades. The Business, Education and Community Alliance of which I am part, has developed a common scholarship application working with several local scholarship organizations. Through this process a record number of students have applied for scholarships. Also, Southern Maryland CAN (College Access Network) has assisted numerous students apply and receive acceptance to colleges, most as the first to attend from their families. These students will enter the workforce much better equipped with the benefit of a college education.

These are but a few major initiatives. The point to emphasize is that there is a broad-based community approach to workforce development. We are grateful for all these efforts and encourage more to get involved in any way possible. Economic development and workforce development go hand in hand.

The writer is the director of the St. Mary’s County Department of Economic and Community Development.