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>> On November 13, 2013, the Maine State Workforce
Investment Board meeting was held
with a special program following.
The meeting was convened at 9:30 by Fred Webber,
its chairman, and after a very short business
meeting at 9:40, the meeting was adjourned
and Mr. Webber introduced Commissioner Jeanne
Paquette, Maine State Department of Labor.
We join that meeting now as the Commissioner comes
to the podium.
>>Commissioner Paquette: Thank you, Fred.
Good morning, everyone.
This is great to see such a full, packed house,
and we have coffee.
So if you didn't get that when you
came in, please feel free.
What we're going to do, because we have
a pretty full agenda today, is we're going
to ask -- we're not going to have a formal break,
so please feel free to get up and refill coffee or use
the restroom as you wish.
We won't take offense if you get
up out of your chairs, okay?
Welcome.
Well, first, I want to say welcome
to our State Workforce Investment meeting.
We've invited a broad range of stakeholders today
to hear a special presentation
from our guest from Washington, D.C.
His name is Garrett Groves, and he comes
from the National Governor's Association.
We will also be hearing from Glenn Mills,
our senior economic research analyst who
is our senior economist, to talk
about how what's going on nationally fits
with our state and what our state needs
to do to figure out what we need to do and
to help us align more with what some
of the best practices are with the other states.
Part of the NGA is to study and coordinate best practices
from around the country to help states
with workforce development strategies to assist
with supporting economic prosperity
throughout our country.
We have guests with us today
to hear what this year's target is, which
is entitled "America Works,"
and just -- I just want to take a minute
to explain what is "America Works"
and why is this a National Governor's
Association initiative.
The National Governor's Association is just that.
It's an association that helps to bring governors together
to figure out what are best practices so
that they can take them back to their own states
and implement some of those best practices.
For example, over the past four years,
we have had a "Complete to Compete"
which was focused on higher education.
We had "Growing the State's Economies"
during the height of the recession,
and then we had "A Better Bottom Line"
which was to help get people
into employment, people with disabilities.
That was from Governor Markell,
and then this year, we have Governor Fallin
from Oklahoma who's actually tying it all together, which
is "America Works, Education and Training
for Tomorrow's Jobs."
Here in Maine, we've had many years
of talking about aligning these systems,
but frankly we've been a lot working -- many
of us have been working in what we call "Silos
of Excellence."
With our federal dollars shrinking and
the uncertainty of future resources,
it's time that we take a serious look
and serious action to work on this issue.
It's not enough to have certain parts
of the state or certain groups working on this
without a strong vision based in economic data
to start moving Maine towards a strong economic future.
We have talented, committed people who look
every day at these issues.
It's time everyone is rowing in the same direction towards
making Maine the best place to live and work.
With that said, we need every Mainer.
Today's goal is to share what's happening
in other states, what are the best practices, and
to take a look at Maine, articulate what
the problems are through economic data
and begin to coordinate resources.
The way today will work is we'll begin with Fred -- oops,
sorry, Fred, you already went.
Sorry about that.
He already took care of the business.
Garret took care of the bathrooms, we're
all set there.
So then we're going to hear from Garrett Groves.
He's our guest from the National Governor's
Association, and again we will hear from Glenn Mills.
We will look at the employment and
the economic picture, and we
will do so so that we can have our businesses, economic
and interested party groups around the state make informed
decisions based in data that is nonpartisan and focused
on past, present, and current trends.
And finally we'll have an opportunity
for questions with Glenn, Garrett, and myself,
and Julie Rabinowitz, our communications director,
will facilitate a Q&A session at the end.
So without further ado, I would
like to introduce Garrett Groves.
Garrett Groves comes to us, as I mentioned, from the NGA.
Garrett is a senior policy analyst
and he works with local entities on workforce,
post secondary education and economic
development policy.
He has served governors, senior policy advisors,
and local leaders on several initiatives designed
to bolster talent, development pipeline --
develop pipelines, and align educational
institutions, training programs, and community based
organizations with employer needs
and state economic development strategies.
He has issue area expertise in career pathway
and sector strategy initiatives, workforce and post secondary
data systems integration, performance measurement
and return on investment analysis.
Preceding his work at NGA, Garrett oversaw
the rigorous evaluation of education
and training programs in the Office of Policy
and Research at the U.S. Department
of Labor.
He also served at various levels
of Colorado State government, including
the Governor's Office of Economic Development,
the Joint Budget Committee of the General Assembly,
and the Office of Lieutenant Governor.
He holds a Master's degree in Public Affairs
in the LBJ School of Public Affairs
at the University of Texas.
Yesterday we had a meeting at the cabinet,
in the cabinet room, with the Governor,
with some of the commissioners who runs
agencies, like DECD, Education, DHHS, DOL,
and we also had the Chancellor
from the University System, Jim Page.
We also had President Fitzsimmons
from the Maine Community College System,
and we had Kate Foster from the University of Maine
at Farmington, along with some senior policy
advisors to the Governor.
We let -- we didn't have much time, but we were allowed
to have Garrett explain over about a 40-minute period
what it is we believe our state needs
to do to look at all the resources that we
have, look at our educational, our workforce systems,
and figure out how we're going
to coordinate and move our system forward
for tomorrow's workers and today's businesses
and today's jobs.
So without further ado again, Garrett Groves.