Lamont creates panel to expand workforce
WATERBURY — Gov. Ned Lamont engaged in two of his favorite pastimes Tuesday: Drawing boldface corporate CEOs, academics and philanthropists into publicprivate partnerships, and tilting at the silos he believes prevent government agencies from working efficiently in common cause.
Lamont signed an executive order creating the Governor’s Workforce Council, an effort to deliver on a campaign promise to bring new methods and energy to workforce development, a buzzword that suggests a holistic approach to what once was called job training. It is tasked with expanding the workforce, then matching supply with significant demand.
Surprisingly, for a state desperate for robust job growth, there are thousands of jobs going unfilled.
Some are in advanced manufacturing, but others are deemed to be mediumskilled, suggesting a potentially quick path to employment — if the workforce can be expanded. And that requires synergies not always found in government: For example, to get an unskilled single parent back into the job market, that means finding resources to provide transportation and child care, as well as education and training.
In a ceremony at Naugatuck Valley Community College, which quickly places most graduates of its manufacturing and health programs in jobs, Lamont said he sees roles for all aspects of public postsecondary education and departments of Labor, Economic and Community Development, Social Services, Transportation, and Correction, among others.
The chair of the new council is Garrett Moran, a onetime investment banker with the Blackstone Group and former president of Year Up, a nonprofit that prepares disadvantaged youth for careers. He is a friend of Lamont’s and helped lead the governor’s transition team.
The council’s members include the CEOs or other top executives from Electric Boat, Stanley Black + Decker, NBC Sports, Bigelow Tea, Sound Manufacturing, Synchrony, AQR, Yale New Haven Hospital, Infosys, The Hartford, Indeed, Aventri and ReNetx.
From the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors are the executive director of ABCD, a community action agency in Bridgeport, and the presidents of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Yale University, and Quinnipiac University. Two labor leaders are on the council, as well as Sen. Tony Hwang, RFairfield, and Rep. Toni Walker, DNew Haven.
“If you know anything about this administration, you get a sense of where we’re coming from with the Workforce Council,” Lamont said. “It will be another publicprivate partnership.”
Last week, Lamont named Colin Cooper, an entrepreneur and former aerospace design engineer as the state’s chief manufacturing officer, bringing a privatesector perspective to the task of filling advanced manufacturing jobs available due to modest growth and a coming “silver tsunami” of retirements.
Lamont has worked to establish relationships with most, if not all of the council members.
“They know every job here in the state of Connecticut,” Lamont said of Indeed, whose chief operating officer, Dave O’Neill, is on the council. “They know how long it takes to fill that job. They know the skills necessary to do it. They’ll be bringing some of those analytics to what we’ve got to do.”