Whether you employ sewing machine operators or software developers, teachers or technicians, CNC operators or CNAs, finding and developing talent is mission critical. It’s also mission critical for the future growth of our region, and that is why your participation in this study is needed.
Marshall County Economic Development Corporation, the Corporate Partnership for Economic Growth (CPEG), and other regional economic development and education stakeholders are partnering in an effort to better understand the workforce needs of local business and industry.
This collaborative Regional Workforce Initiative has three goals:
You can be a part of this initiative by completing the workforce survey located here.
The goal of the survey is to quantify the number of open positions, assess skills gaps, and identify barriers to company growth related to workforce issues.
The survey will take approximately 15 minutes, and should be completed by business owners, managers, human resource managers or someone with in-depth knowledge of your company’s current and future hiring needs. The survey requests information about current full-time openings and anticipated openings over the next 6 months, including salary, skills, and education requirements. You cannot save your responses and return later.
All information will be kept confidential.
The survey will be open until Friday, July 27th. Results will be compiled to inform work sessions focused on identifying solutions to address the barriers to filling existing positions. Only companies in Marshall, Kosciusko, Elkhart, St. Joseph and Fulton Counties that complete the survey are eligible to participate in these work sessions.
Additional details about the Regional Workforce Initiative, including a list of the regional partners supporting this effort, can be found at www.cpeg.org.
Thank you for your time in completing the survey, and for helping to be a part of the solution!
One of my ToDo List items as Chairman of Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) was to see a new website up and running and get MCEDC tied into some of the social media outlets. Thanks to Jennifer, Derek and Pam, this is one I can strike off my list. (The benefits of Chairing organizations is that you can direct other people to do things and then take credit for their hard work. Thanks guys!) If you haven’t visited the new website, you can do so here. It takes most of the good things from the old site and has added some functionality. Some of these originated internally and some were the result of our work with Ady Voltedge on our marketing plan.
The website has been up since the first quarter of this year. In the past month, Derek has added the social media connections. MCEDC is now posting to Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. You can go to the MCEDC home page and there are a couple of places with the connection buttons for these services. Visit the site! More clicks there help our SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ratings and that could mean the difference in attracting new business to Marshall County. If you Google it to find it, that helps even more…
Jennifer Laurent, Executive Director of Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC), gave an update to the Culver Town Council last night. Aside from giving a report on some of the activities MCEDC is involved in throughout the County, she discussed some of the specifics for Culver. One these was her interactions with Elkay Wood Products, formerly Medallion Cabinetry. Jennifer facilitated a radio interview June 15th on WTCA with Rick Coffman, Operations Manager, to discuss what they do and what their plans for the future are. I think a key point here is that no one else in Culver is making these kind of contacts and making sure our largest industrial client is helped.
Jennifer also commended the Plan Commission and Redevelopment Commission for making the first steps towards a new Comprehensive Plan. (20/20 Vision for Culver!) She stressed some of the visioning needs that the plan should address along with the nuts & bolts infrastructure and land planning functions.
This is much like what I’ve been trying to promote with the various groups… We need to use the development of the new Comprehensive Plan as the catalyst for new ideas about Culver’s future. Communities are either growing or dying. Maintaining the Status Quo is impossible.
Jennifer is also working with Culver’s new Town Manager, Jeff Schoeff, to coordinate some training sessions for the Redevelopment Commission, Plan Commission and Town Council. One important topic will be TIF Districts. Others topics relating to finances and the various powers of these boards will be considered as well.
I hope the council members and those in the audience recognize the value Culver gets from leveraging their funds in with Marshall County and the other Marshall County communities. Budgets will no doubt be tight again this year, but without MCEDC, who would be doing these things for Culver? We have so many individuals with good intentions, but they can’t make up for someone with dedicated time and tenure based on performance.
I attended a seminar put on by IEDC (Indiana Economic Development Corporation) in Indianapolis last week. I was fortunate that it was in the morning before an ABC State Board meeting in the afternoon, allowing me to combine the trip to Indy. It still made a ridiculously long day since I had to hit the road before 6:00 to be at the seminar at 9:00, driving between the two in lieu of eating lunch and then leaving the ABC meeting I didn’t get home until about 7:30.
I attended as Chairman of MCEDC (Marshall County Economic Development Corporation) along with MCEDC staff, Jennifer Laurent and Derek Spier. I was pleased that Grant Munroe, Ralph Winters and and Rick Tompos attended on behalf of the Culver Redevelopment Commission and that Mayor Mark Senter and City Attorney Sean Surrisi attended on behalf of the City of Plymouth. It was unfortunate that there weren’t others from Marshall County able to attend.
The program centered around creative ways communities and economic development corporations were encouraging growth through the use of TIF Districts, shell buildings and virtual computer presentations. Several different EDC’s presented on their use of these tools to attract development.
Both Culver and Plymouth have TIF Districts in Marshall County and both have used them successfully. Plymouth has been more creative than Culver, but nowhere near as creative as some of the presentations that were made last week! In a nutshell, money taken in by the TIF Districts must be spent on capital projects to benefit the TIF District, which allows quite a bit of leeway in interpretation. One interesting use involved the coordination of a single county wide TIF District coordinating two City Redevelopment Commissions in conjunction with a County Redevelopment Commission. Can you imagine if Marshall County communities could foster that kind of cooperation!?! I think it generated quite a few new ideas in the attendees.
The use of shell buildings was discussed. Plymouth had been considering contracting for a shell building on PIDCO property on the northwest side of the City. I’m sure hearing the success of other communities with these ventures helped spur the signing of a letter of intent with Garmong Construction this past Tuesday night. (WTCA story here.) This will result in a new, 45,000 sf (expandable to 135,000 sf) tilt-up concrete building being constructed west of Pioneer Seed on Commerce Drive. In our just-in-time delivery society, it’s common that we’re passed over by site selectors when we don’t have a building that fits their needs ready to go. The anecdotal evidence presented suggested that having the building there got prospects to the community. Even when the building didn’t fit their exact requirements, it often got them there to consider other available sites.
During MCEDC’s discussions with Ady-Voltedge, our marketing consultant, we often heard the benefits of virtual site build-outs. It was presented that by showing what a building looked like on the site, a prospect would find it easier to make the jump to visualizing THEIR building on the site. An example of this was shown where an existing, dilapidated, empty building was shown with a virtual facelift, new landscaping and cars in the parking lot. They were able to sell the client on this vision before ever taking them to see the existing building.
I hope the other attendees came back with the new enthusiasm I gained from these presentations. Indiana should be poised for a leap forward in economic prosperity. Indiana is a business tax friendly, Right-To-Work State at the crossroads of America. Marshall County needs to take every opportunity to be part of the leap in renewed growth Indiana is about to experience.
Despite diligent campaigning on my part, my proposed successors all lost yesterday’s election. I will be Chairman of the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) for another year. I have enjoyed the interaction in the position and feel I have learned a lot, but I had offered to step down. It is not an onerous position, but I often cannot devote the time to it that I think it warrants. My real job often gets in the way of my extracurricular activities! For better or worse, my peers on the board disagreed with my self-assessment.
My involvement in MCEDC serves multiple personal and business goals:
Regarding other board member updates, Roger Umbaugh was reappointed by Marshall County as their representative. Don Mahoney was reappointed by Argos as their representative and accepted another term as Treasurer. Bill Davis, Bremen’s representative, accepted another term as Vice Chairman.
I’m looking forward to another year of making a difference. As always, suggestions are welcome.