Strategic skills initiative: Indiana's regional workforce development program.

• Author: McKimmie, Kathy
• Position: WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

CREATING AND KEEPING high-wage jobs in Indiana. That was the state's clear intent when it invested $23 million in the Strategic Skills Initiative, SSI, launched in 2006. Over the next year, the state's 11 economic growth regions will wind up their grant programs, which first identified job shortages and skill requirements in critical occupations, then competed for funds to plug the holes.

Not surprisingly, the jobs pretty much fell in line with the state's targeted industry growth sectors including life sciences and health care, advanced manufacturing, agri-business, information technology and logistics. The difference, though, was a decidedly bottom-up, local approach to how the challenges would be addressed.

Local decision making.

Health care and manufacturing were two priorities for northwest Indiana, says Linda Woloshansky, president and CEO of The Center of Workforce Innovations, Valparaiso, the regional workforce investment board serving the seven-county region. Through SSI funding the region was able to work with both Purdue North Central, Westville, and the Purdue Calumet campus in Hammond to fund Ph.D. instructors for their nursing programs, allowing each to train 40 additional students. "That was the bottleneck," she says. "We were able to agree as a community that this was a key issue and help provide them with resources to allow that to happen." In addition, Purdue Calumet will be able to train 30 master's degree students in nursing.

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"It was exactly what we needed," Woloshansky says, touting the flexibility of the SSI process and the local decision making. "Had we only been able to pay tuition, that would not have solved the problem." The program will have a real impact on the area's nursing shortage, she says, and both campuses have agreed to continue training at the new levels to keep the pipeline open. "It's a sustainable strategy"

That should be good news to the governor and Department of Workforce Development officials who created the program. "In order to successfully do this it had to be demand-driven," says Marty Morrow, COO of DWD. That meant critical communication lines had to be built with businesses in the regions to identify workforce needs. Competition was tough for the funds; 85 solutions were proposed and 46 were funded, nearly all of which have been successful, he says. "It's very different depending on the region you're in. It's a very diverse state with a very diverse set of...