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Market is tight, but BTC students are positioned better

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Sharon Kennedy

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John R. Beckord

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James Otterstein

JANESVILLE — Blackhawk Technical College is 10 weeks away from graduating its largest class ever.

Many of the 600 plus grads will pick up a diploma or certificate and face a landscape where jobs are few and applicants are many.

In a battered local economy, Rock County’s most recent unemployment rate is among the highest in the state: 11 percent.

BTC officials say jobs are available, but grads might have to travel or take part-time positions.

Local economic development officials, however, agree that while graduates will struggle to find jobs in the short term, long-term success for students and economic growth for the area is dependent on a changing educational model.

“It’s always a big challenge to determine and validate what the demand-driven occupations are, especially when you’re talking about jobs that may or may not be there,” said James Otterstein, Rock County’s economic development manager.

“What was demand-driven two years ago might not be demand-driven as we move forward.”

Forecasting professions in need of workers is similar to shooting at a moving target, said Sharon Kennedy, BTC’s vice president of learning.

“It’s a disservice to suggest that there are no jobs or there won’t be jobs,” she said. “Students just need a higher level of skills and more rigor.

“But we’ve got to be honest with people and not sugar coat the truth. Are you going to graduate in May and get a job in June, in December, never?”

While BTC would love to keep its graduates within local borders, officials know better. Some students enroll with hopes of finding a local job; others intend to follow a career wherever it takes them.

First and foremost, BTC’s mission is to educate.

“Individuals certainly have the right to go to a college or skill advancement institution and set themselves up without regard for positions that might not exist in Rock County,” said John Beckord, president of Forward Janesville.

“But if they go in expecting that the local jobs are there, then we have a mix and match problem. I’d make sure if I was going into it that my eyes are wide open.”

Short-term opportunities

Kennedy recently polled many of the BTC deans and found that jobs will exist in the short term for many of the new graduates.

But there’s a caveat, she said. Some of the jobs are part-time and may not be in Rock or Green counties.

The immediate market is tight but better in the future for graduates of the radiography and welding programs, she said, noting that welding jobs will most likely reappear more than 70 miles away in southeast Wisconsin.

“We have large numbers of students in all our programs right now,” Kennedy said. “Some are stronger than others in terms of hiring.”

For example, graduates of the heating, ventilating and air conditioning program might find service-related jobs in the field until the new home construction market rebounds.

There’s work for industrial machinists willing to drive, and Kennedy knows of one employer with eight openings for automation/robotics grads.

In the power distribution field, graduates are still waiting for the expected retirement exodus from utilities and are biding their time by working as cable television installers, she said.

Specialized training

Linking current students and their programming with near-term and nearby jobs is only one part of BTC’s job.

At its core, economic development is based upon the expansion of existing businesses and the recruitment of new ones. BTC plays an active role in local economic development efforts, Kennedy said.

“We have to be a component of that,” she said. “We can develop specific talent, and we have to be able to do it on a dime.

“In that regard, there’s value in what we do.”

For example, she said, BTC recently offered specialized training for 85 workers moving into positions at the new Kettle Food manufacturing plant in Beloit.

Otterstein said that while BTC is grounded in traditional programming, it’s still flexible when it comes to meeting employers’ needs.

“That flexibility is really important,” he said. “It’s the ability to anticipate or respond to an employer’s need, because when they need training, in most cases they need it now.”

Otterstein said Rock County has two excellent examples of collaboration between the public and private sectors on education. They are the recently expanded engineering and nursing programs at UW-Rock County.

“Based on what employers were experiencing and forecasting, we identified a mismatch between the educational supply and the workplace demand and were able to get those programs at UW-Rock,” he said.

Education and economic development

Otterstein works closely with the Rock County Development Alliance, a small group of professionals doing the heavy lifting for Rock County 5.0, a public-private initiative designed to foster collaboration, communication and economic development connections that benefit county communities.

As it moves nearer its fundraising goal of $1 million, the organization’s work is based on five strategies. One of those is identifying local skill sets and then aligning and strengthening the supply with demand.

Otterstein and others say there’s a national mismatch between the skills of many of today’s workers and those required in a changing workforce.

Solving that disconnect requires a multi-faceted approach that creates what Otterstein refers to as “specialized generalists,” workers with a core set of competencies that can be applied to a variety of industries.

“It’s not all about wired coffee shops or how many college graduates reside within a census block,” he said. “Instead, it’s about retaining and attracting talent, talent that’s certified, credentialed and recognized by the private sector—regardless of the industry—as a documented productivity gainer.”

Too many students, Otterstein said, go through a very specific program and receive a certificate that pigeonholes them to a very specific job.

“I’d like to see a more wide open, competency-based certificate,” he said. “For example, an information technology certificate that doesn’t just tailor you to one industry, but instead would allow you to go into health care, food processing or whatever.”

A step in that direction is the Stateline Career & Technical Education Program that is offered at area high schools in conjunction with BTC and UW-Rock County, he said. It ensures that students have advanced enrollment and credit standing following high school graduation.

Such a “career pathway” program includes competency-based curricula driven by employers and industries. Its course offerings are modular, sequential and portable. It includes flexible entry and exit points at institutions of higher learning, and it ultimately connects the dots between business, education and jobs.

Pathways link students to careers in ninth grade and guide them through their apprenticeship, tech school diploma or college degree. They involve significant input from area business and industry.

“Today’s—and more importantly tomorrow’s—business world has placed a premium on the education time factor,” he said. “Employers are expecting their employees to have the necessary skills in a much shorter time frame.

“These demands certainly challenge the existing or traditional educational attainment approach.”

Meeting those demands, Otterstein said, will produce certain trends:

-- Education is the basic prerequisite for sustainable employment.

-- Talent development, retention and recruitment are linked to successful economies.

-- Industry specific education and training, modeled around competency-based versus traditional academic measurements, is critical to a healthy economy.

-- Career or occupational advancements is a product of life-long learning.

“Economic development efforts must continue to focus on ensuring that we have the right sized and priced product, the right people, the proper infrastructure and the right business climate,” he said.