City Plans Moving Forward from Mayor’s August Workforce Summit

After a successful Workforce Summit at Pensacola City Hall, Mayor D.C. Reeves says the focus now turns to how to turn the conversation into concrete action.

After a successful Workforce Summit at Pensacola City Hall, Mayor D.C. Reeves says the focus now turns to how to turn the conversation into concrete action. “As I have said many times, my laser-focus for this term is ensuring that our community builds and supports the talent pipeline needed to make sure that projects like Birdon and partners like ST Engineering have the talent pool they need to thrive here,” Reeves said. “The engagement we saw from the business, education and governmental sectors shows me that the community prioritizes that as well.” Emceed by Steve Baham, the City’s Economic Development Director, the summit included guests who are leaders in secondary and higher education, workforce development, business leaders, private industry and more. “The engagement among the people in the room spoke volumes about how important this subject is to the community,” Baham said. “We did not intend to solve every challenge in the first conversation, but we did set the table for what will come next to help prepare the community and the region for the future.” The summit focused on what the workforce development landscape is statewide, what industry leaders in our region see as needs, identifying capacity, programs that can scale, gaps, and funding, flexibility, stacking programs and resource deployment. “As good as the conversation was, I want to be clear: The summit was the easy part; the real work starts now,” Reeves said. Watch the video of the summit here. WHAT’S NEXT Next steps include convening two working groups – one of private business, one of academia – to continue the conversation in a focused way. According to Baham, based on the survey of attendees, the key themes for moving forward are: Keeping the engagement among employers, educators, and government leaders; Building the talent pipeline with answers good for both the short- and long-term. Often mentioned was the need to include everything from apprenticeships, rapid credentialing programs, on-the-job training, as well as short-term and stackable credential pathways, alongside traditional degreed programs. Ensuring the communication about what job opportunities exist flows to parents and students from schools and educators. Other common threads noted were that the solution to workforce development will have regional impacts and that while the conversation focuses on recruitment, the importance of retention of skilled employees should not be overlooked. “I’m proud of what the community brought to the table, and I’m looking forward to what we build together from here,” Reeves said. WHO WAS INVITED A wide swath of the business, education, and governmental communities were invited to the Summit, including: Academic & Educational Institutions University of West Florida (UWF)(including UWF Haas Center and WAVE program) Florida State University (FSU INSPIRE) Pensacola State College (PSC) Northwest Florida State College (NWFL State College) Northeastern University George Stone Technical College Escambia County School District (ECSD) Private Business & Industry Birdon ST Engineering Offshore Inland Marine American Magic Blue Wind Technology Global Business Solutions, Inc. (GBSI) Poarch Creek Indian Enterprises Workforce & Economic Development Entities CareerSource Florida CareerSourceEscarosa FloridaWestEconomic Development Alliance Florida’s Great Northwest Space Florida State & Local Government FloridaCommerce Florida Department of Education (FDOE) Escambia County Town of Century Nonprofit, Research & Foundation Partners Triumph Gulf Coast Florida Chamber Foundation