Governor assessing need for increased job training

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October 22, 2009

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Thu Oct 22, 2009, 10:59 PM CDT

By Derek Spellman

dspellman@joplinglobe.com

NEOSHO, Mo. — In years past, Kit Loveland, 45, worked in the retail business as a store manager.

“Stores are always closing,” she said Thursday when talking about her career change to the medical field.

Loveland, a licensed practical nurse, will graduate in a couple of months from Crowder College as a registered nurse.

So will classmates Tabitha Jessip, 26, and Katy Bryant, 24.

“I personally love to work with patients,” said Jessip, who, like Loveland, is already an LPN and will become a registered nurse.

The three are familiar with the demand for nurses, not just locally but nationally, despite the economic downturn and unemployment.

“I think as long as patients need health care, there will always be a shortage,” Bryant said.

Jobs in demand

Even in an economic downturn, some jobs are in demand.

The state of Missouri wants to identify those jobs, and ensure that community colleges and technical schools have the resources to furnish training for those jobs.

That was the thread of a visit Thursday from Gov. Jay Nixon. He visited Crowder College not only to meet with students like Loveland, Jessip and Bryant, but also to consult local business leaders and college officials about the types of jobs — and job training — that employers are seeking.

“To turn this economy around, Missouri must have the right workers with the right skills to compete for the jobs of tomorrow,” Nixon said in a statement. “Our community colleges are vital partners in these efforts. Together, we’re identifying the skills employers need in their workers and ensuring that our community colleges are providing programs that target those exact requirements.”

Missouri’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in September, according to the state Department of Economic Development.

The state, coincidentally, has a registered nurse shortage of 9.5 percent, according to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.

Expanded program

Crowder College has expanded its nursing program in recent years. Freeman Health System has hired many Crowder graduates and graduates from other schools, and yet it still has 80 vacancies, according to Phil Willcoxon, senior vice president of administration at Freeman Health System.

Willcoxon was among a panel of people who spoke with Nixon on Thursday.

The panel also included Brad Tyndall, dean of instruction at Crowder College.

Tyndall said health care is among the high-demand jobs, along with those in alternative energy and energy efficiency. He said Crowder boasts strong programs in all those areas.

But Tyndall suggested that programs aimed at manufacturing jobs must provide “integrated skill sets that are multipurpose” instead of being too specific. For example, colleges could offer programs in industrial maintenance that provide training in a specific skill set — like building or servicing wind turbines — but also offer general skills that would make the student viable for another job.

Nixon, who also visited Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield on Thursday and plans to visit more schools in the coming weeks, said community colleges are uniquely “agile” in terms of meeting the demands of job training. They also tend to know those local demands well because of their close ties with their communities, he said.

Training targets

The governor said he would use the information gathered from his visits to formulate a plan that would strengthen vocational and technical training in target areas. He said he would present that plan during the next legislative session.

“We would have to talk about getting some additional funding (for training),” he told the Globe after Thursday’s visit.

The proposal will advance at a time when the state already faces a budget crunch.

State Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, who was on hand Thursday, said he thought Nixon’s visit was “productive.” He agreed that community colleges will be “critical” to the state’s long-term economic recovery.

He also acknowledged that the Legislature will face difficult decisions at a time when revenues are down.

“Absolutely we will have to make tough choices,” he said.

Did you know?

Crowder College will expand its nursing program to its Cassville center in January. The program will start with 25 students in its first year and grow to 50 students in its second year. Crowder now has 50 students in the nursing program at its center in Nevada and 120 at its Neosho campus.