Governor hears job prep needs
Employers address Haslam
Gov. Bill Haslam met with business leaders and education officials in Memphis Tuesday to learn about cooperative efforts among institutions that don’t always communicate as well as they should.
Some of the complaints that surfaced were painfully familiar to everyone around the table at a University of Tennessee Health Science Center conference room where the governor held the latest in a series of sessions particularly aimed at improving the state’s performance in postsecondary education.
“You’d be surprised at the kids who I’ve had to show how to use a ruler,” said Larry Gibson, plant manager at Unilever, an ice cream manufacturing plant in Covington. “I’ve actually lowered my standards of hiring.”
Said Mary Anna Quinn, senior vice president at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: “Kids come out of college, and they can’t write a sentence.”
Billy Orgel, chairman of the Memphis and Shelby County unified school board, lamented the lack of equipment in the public schools that would make sure graduates have the computer skills they’ll need to enter the workforce.
There were success stories, as well.
Tommy Carls, vice president of development for Medtronic, described a partnership with the University of Memphis that exposes budding engineers to processes used in the medical device field. The hope, he said, is to turn around a situation that has forced the company to go elsewhere for engineers — the aero- space and auto manufacturing fields, for example.
Southwest Tennessee Community College president Nate Essex described partnerships — fostered by city and government — that had been customized to meet the needs of several industries in the city.
Where improvement is needed, said Christine Richards, executive vice president at FedEx, is for the state and its educational institutions to be able to supply a workforce for industries that will need employees five to 10 years in the future.
Right now, “I need mechanics who can actually make things,” said Gibson. “I need machinists, journeymen … I need people who can make me competitive with Mexico, make me competitive with overseas factories.”
The technology in technology centers is behind, said William Ray, director of the Covington Technology Center: “We need this equipment so we can train people on the technology he’s (Gibson) talking about. It outdates itself in a year.”
Haslam said the meetings had been useful in his effort to make Tennessee more competitive when it comes to filling the jobs that industries need. “We want to make Tennessee that place where employers say, ‘I’m getting the workforce I need. They’re coming to me with the right kinds of skill sets, the right kind of analytical ability.’ ”
The thrust of the effort “isn’t about saying we’re only going to have trade schools,” said Haslam, noting his own background as a liberal-arts major. “But you can’t deny the reality that right now we need engineers, IT folks, other technical positions. We’re way short in Tennessee.”