Greenwood leaders discuss possible job market in 2029
September 28, 2009
By CHRIS TRAINOR/ ctrainor@indexjournal.com
What will the workforce, educational landscape and job market be like in 20 years?
It’s a subject numerous local leaders discussed Thursday as Partnership Alliance hosted the Workforce: 2029 Summit at Piedmont Tech. Partnership executive in charge of operations Mark Warner and V&R Consulting’s Claire Kuhl led the event.
The summit was attended by a “who’s who” of local leaders, including Greenwood Mayor Welborn Adams, Ninety Six Mayor Arvest Turner, incoming city manager Charlie Barrineau, county manager Vic Carpenter, county councilman Gonza Bryant, Piedmont Tech president Ray Brooks and many more, including representatives from some of Greenwood’s leading employers and industries.
Warner talked about the idea of getting local leaders into one place to discuss the future of economic growth in the area.
“When I started in workforce development back in early 2007, I had three strategic initiatives to work on: work ethic certificates, the ready-to-work credential and the intern and apprentice Web portal,” Warner said. “We’re at a point where the work ethic certificate (program) is up and running, the intern and apprentice Web portal is up and running and I think we’ve taken the ready-to-work credential about as far as it is going to go right now. The question was, what are we going to work on next?
“My thought was, instead of hiring a consultant, like was done in the past, we’ve got great minds in this county that can help come up with what we ought to be working on. That was the genesis of this summit.”
Warner discussed how Partnership will apply the information it gathered as a result of Thursday’s summit.
“I’ll partner with Trisha Craven at Piedmont Tech, Sandra Johnson at the (Upper Savannah Council of Governments), Cynthia Pitts at the (Upper Savannah Council of Governments regional education center), Susan Heath with the state training system and Angelle Laborde, who is with the (Greenwood) Chamber,” Warner said. “That’s going to be the nucleus of the group that will take the suggestions that come out of this summit and start evaluating them and saying, ‘Let’s figure out how this works for the short-term and long-term type strategies.’ Then they will report back with their recommendations.”
Warner was asked whether the short-term vision takes any priority over a long-term vision in the current economic climate.
“My personal opinion is that you have to have both,” he said. “I’ve looked at the data probably way too much. In the long-term, for example, the Kids Count data shows that if a kid is not on (appropriate) reading comprehension levels by the third grade, they’ve got a better than average chance of dropping out of high school. If you look at that age group, we’ve got to be working on them now. But we’ve also got to be working on those potential dropouts and those that are unemployed. Those are the kind of short-term issues.”
As she addressed the group, Kuhl talked about the characteristics people will need to succeed in the future workplace, in an era writer Daniel Pink has dubbed the “Conceptual Age.”
“So, if we are going to succeed in the 21st century and beyond, we’ve got to have the high-concept stuff,” Kuhl said. “Right-brain artistic beauty, the satisfying narrative, the ability to synthesize odd thoughts into a unifying, cohesive whole. Then, combine that with the high-touch, the humanity, the empathy, the ability to relate. To take joy in our callings and our life experiences shared together. Once again, right-brain stuff.”
