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Workforce Investment Board to keep tabs on Angelou report progress
By Holly Fisher
Supplements Editor
Despite the carefully outlined action plan in the AngelouEconomics report, one question lingers: Who is responsible for all these recommendations? The action plan has 19 recommendations, many with four or five specific tasks.
Even though the Charleston Regional Development Alliance commissioned the study, it is hesitant to be the main overseer, explained David Ginn, president and chief executive officer. Yet in a recent interview, he admitted someone has to lead the charge.
And it appears as if the Trident Workforce Investment Board will be the group to oversee the recommendations in the report. The WIB, funneled through the Grants Administration of Charleston County, received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to create a plan for assisting the 1,100 workers who will be displaced by this year’s Base Realignment and Closure announcement.
Plans may include retraining or relocating those workers, as well as attracting additional industries to the area, which would provide job opportunities for the former government employees.
The area has the opportunity to receive another $2 million to implement the plan. Coleman Glaze, WIB chairman, said a decision on that grant should come next month. The deadline to have the plan in place for spending the money is Dec. 31.
Even though the Grants Administration of Charleston County administers the grant, the WIB will implement the plan, much of which could fall in line with the Angelou report’s recommendations. According to Glaze and other economic development officials, the WIB will then be the likely clearinghouse for the Angelou report.
With the Workforce Investment Board’s diverse membership, representing economic development, business, education and the military, Ginn hopes the board will answer the question about who is leading the Angelou report efforts, he said.
“The possibilities of this (report) are very exciting,” Glaze said. “The Angelou report is a very formal document. I hope we can add to it and help it come to life.”
Glaze noted the WIB won’t necessarily give orders to other groups but will oversee the process. “I look upon the workforce investment system as the catalyst to bring all these group together,” he said. “We don’t want to do your job; we just want to make sure you’re doing your job.”
The WIB is hosting a planning retreat later this month, some of which will address the report. Its first such retreat in five years, the goal is to craft a vision for the whole community. Board members will hear from a variety of business and economic development representatives in an attempt to craft a vision for the region—a piece of the Angelou report process, Glaze said, that is missing.
“With the Trident Workforce Investment Board, we’ll see how all this fits into what our mission is,” Glaze said. “We know generally, but this will give us specifics, so we can go to the schools, economic development (officials) and the chambers to say, ‘You need to fill this need.’”
Holly Fisher is the supplements editor for the Business Journal. E-mail her at hfisher@charlestonbusiness.com.
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