Stepping in to close R.I. skills gap

When the MEDfx Corp. in Warwick went through a growth spurt earlier this year, company officials were surprised and saddened that they could hire only two Rhode Islanders out of the 20 workers needed for skilled jobs at the health care and information technology company.
“I am a Rhode Islander, born and raised here, and it helps us to have a localized team,” said Colin Barry, CEO of MEDfx. “We want to maximize the number of local workers we have with loyalty to Rhode Island and its economic status.”
To help make sure such a situation does not happen again at MEDfx or any other local company, the Community College of Rhode Island will use a $3.4 million grant from the federal departments of labor and education to provide technical training to 600 workers during a 36-month period to help close the skills gap in the state.
Closing that gap, officials say, will put more people to work and help reduce the state’s 10.6 percent unemployment rate, one of the highest in the nation.
The funding is part of $500 million in 32 grants to community colleges across the country, a direct result of last year’s White House Summit on Community Colleges and part of a four-year, $2 billion initiative launched by the Obama administration to help economically disadvantaged workers nationwide.
The grant to CCRI – the largest community college in New England with 17,893 students enrolled this fall – is the only grant in Rhode Island. Massachusetts received $20 million for similar programs at its 14 community colleges.
Ray Di Pasquale, president of CCRI and a state commissioner of higher education, is excited about the grant, received Sept. 30. “It’s a big initiative,” he said. “It is President [Barack] Obama’s initiative to help community colleges in a different way, to see if they can get America back to work and spur the economy nationwide.”
The funds will be used by a CCRI Pathways to Advance Career Education program Di Pasquale expects to be in place by January. A key part, he said, will see CCRI reach out to local business leaders to find out the skills their work forces require. “We will do outreach,” he said. “We want to hear from local companies, and hopefully they’re going to tell us their needs.” Di Pasquale stressed the “collaborative” effort that the grant is expected to foster among the state’s industries, educators, government agencies and community groups.
He provided Providence Business News with an abstract of the local program that lists about 20 “stakeholder” organizations that will be involved in various ways, ranging from The Tech Collective to the Governor’s Workforce Board and the Hospital Association of Rhode Island. Among the employers who have already signed on are Lifespan, West View Health Care Center in West Warwick and Atrion Networking Corp. in Warwick.
Di Pasquale and Robin Smith, associate vice president of CCRI and director of the college’s Center for Workforce and Community Development, explained details of the program, although some aspects have not been determined yet.
Workers eligible for training are: those displaced because their employers moved out of state; those unemployed due to downsizing or other reasons; and incumbent workers who need added training to move from low-paying, unskilled jobs to skilled positions that pay wages that sustain families. The “primary focus” will be on dislocated workers in the manufacturing sector, according to Smith and the CCRI abstract.
The local Network Rhode Island offices, which are unemployment offices operated by the state Department of Labor and Training, will be the main recruiting sites.
People hired to implement the grant will go to network offices, Smith said, to recruit suitable candidates. It is too soon to say how many people will be hired to work on the grant, she said, but the first will be a project director, a job that will be posted within the next month or so.
The grant specifies that skills taught will be in the health care and IT fields and include “experiential-learning opportunities,” according to the CCRI abstract.
As for the exact nature of the training, Di Pasquale said those details will be decided in large part by the feedback received from local employers. “This will be an industry-driven curriculum,” he said.
When and where the training will take place have not been decided yet, but options include any one or all of the CCRI campuses in Warwick, Lincoln, Providence, Newport and Westerly. Classes may be offered evenings and weekends as well as during the day. In terms of scheduling, “this program has to fit the needs of the potential workers,” Di Pasquale said. “There will probably be a combination [of class offerings]. We’re looking for the right mix. But the purpose is to make these classes extra-accessible.”
Those who complete training will receive “industry-recognized certifications associated with higher wages,” the CCRI abstract said, and average earnings of $15 per hour. Smith spoke of the importance of “stackable credentials,” where layer upon layer of training can be added over the years for workers’ continued advancement.
At MEDfx, Barry applauded news of the grant, which he noted will address the two challenging sectors – health care and IT – that are the focus of his company.
The 20 job openings that were filled earlier this year by mostly out-of-state hires were in the areas of quality assurance and business analysis, Barry said. MEDfx is a privately held provider of health-information systems, whose national headquarters is in Warwick.
Barry said he is well aware that Rhode Island does have workers trained in IT, but without the full set of skills and domain experience that a growing company like MEDfx needs. Experience in computer clouds, for instance, is one skill lacking in the Ocean State, he said.
“We’ve taken people and trained them before,” he acknowledged, but the company simply did not have time to train the 20 workers required due to this year’s “big growth spurt.” MEDfx employs a total of 25 workers. The company did advertise the vacant positions, Barry said, and among the firm’s work force are graduates of local schools such as New England Institute of Technology.
Barry expects another round of hiring at MEDfx by the end of the year, too soon to benefit from the CCRI program. But, with future hiring needs in mind, MEDfx stands ready to help CCRI. “We’re very supportive of the grant,” Barry said. “We’ve worked with local schools before, and we’re willing to offer any guidance we can to make the program successful.” •