What is DMACC Business Resources?

It is the main conduit and liaison between our business community of the DMACC region and the community college. We work with the businesses in identifying their workforce needs and then help them in identifying where we can get those training needs met, either through DMACC resources or through some of the contacts that DMACC has in working with other training organizations.

Please describe your new role.

It’s meeting with business leaders, meeting with their top leaders, whether it is the president or CEO or their HR leadership, and really getting to know and understand their needs around their work forces and figuring out how we can help them to address those.

Have you set any initial goals?

I think it is very important for us to get out and let our business owners know about the resources that are available at DMACC. There is a great staff that I’m getting as I move into this role, and they have done a fabulous job, and I just want to help them and support them in reaching out to all of the counties that are part of the DMACC region and all of the businesses within those counties. Also, really reaching out to the new business start-ups and entrepreneurs within the DMACC region and seeing how DMACC resources can support them. They may not be hiring a huge number of people, but they may still have some needs that we can directly address. So we’d really like to support them in getting their businesses started. We recognize that is where growth comes from.

What are some of the biggest needs?

We do have needs for machinists, we have needs for industrial maintenance, we have needs for engineering technicians, those types of things. We are really trying to be driven by what the needs of the businesses are and trying to match those up with what programs we offer. … I know we work very hard in providing those kinds of training to a lot of our manufacturers. And the region does have a fair amount of manufacturing. We do a lot of lean training as well and partner with the Center for Industrial Research (and Service) in Ames to link people to a lot of the lean methodologies.

What economic development opportunities lie ahead?

We’ve got some pretty well established sectors, like financial and insurance, which are mainly concentrated in the metro Des Moines area. I think as you go out into other counties, we’ve got a very exciting and growing wind industry sector. So we are trying to continue to support those companies.

Are you all business or do you have any hobbies?

I like to cook, so I’m trying to groom my 10-year-old to be a chef. Our latest venture that we have started is making pasta. He is making pasta today, and he’s doing it without me being there. In fact, he’s done it before, and I’ve come home and was amazed he already had it made. I like to garden and read and do a lot of things with my kids. Recently, I’ve been coaching a Lego League team. That can be pretty intense, especially when you are not an engineer.

Describe a challenge to workforce development.

Our ongoing challenge is getting all of our institutions – educational and training and business and workforce – all kind of understanding how they need to be aligned so we can overcome this structural gap between the skill sets within our work force now and what our businesses need. … I think the way to approach that is to really look at our pipeline of talent from how we are teaching kids in K-12 and how we are really encouraging them to explore all kinds of opportunities after they finish high school.

What else can you tell me?

I do think our most precious and scarce resource that we have within the state is our talent and our work force. So I’m really excited to join the DMACC organization, because it has such a critical role in making sure that we keep our talent here and we get them the right skills that support our businesses and really create the quality of life that we are all accustomed to in Iowa and really want to see continue. I get to focus on something that I am very passionate about.