Published February 2001

Training coordinator key
to skilled work force

A key to building a diverse, globally competitive economy is to ensure we have within Snohomish County a highly skilled and educationally adaptable work force available to work for our corporations and organizations.

Whether it’s the biotechnical industry’s need to train specialized laboratory technicians in specific skills or the electronics industry’s need to upgrade computer skills of its engineering support staff, work-force development is critical to develop the high-growth, high-wage 21st-century economy we seek.

To this end, the Snohomish County Economic Development Council recently has taken significant strides to strengthen the county’s work-force development initiative. We have made work-force development one of the top four initiatives in our five-year expansion plan.

An important part of advancing this endeavor was the recent hiring of Jennifer Bailey as the county’s customized training coordinator. Filling this position is key to ensuring we remain connected to the specialized training and educational needs of our critical industries. This also will signal to potential business arrivals that Snohomish County takes seriously the concept of the continuous learning of our population and a strong collaboration among education providers, government and the private sector for improvement of education at all levels.

Ms. Bailey comes to us from a similar position with WorkForce Renton, a nationally-recognized work-force development agency in that south King County city. Here, she will be responsible for coordinating the customized training outreach program for the county.

While reporting directly to the Snohomish County EDC, the position also is accountable to the Workforce Development Coordinator and the Workforce Development Council’s Account Executive Team. She also will work closely with the “Future-Ready WorkForce Project” of the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology, a consortium of technology-related entities of Shoreline and Edmonds community colleges.

The benefit of having a strong customized training component within the broader economic development effort is that even as the county grows by attracting new and expanding businesses, we stand ready to also support the growth initiatives of existing businesses within the county.

Without such a work-force development infrastructure available, companies may look to locales that can supply those needs and direct their expansion roles there.

This, of course, could cost us not only the additional jobs created but perhaps the very presence of the company within our borders.

For example, we hear often from many of our leading biotech and bio-medical organizations of the continuing need to provide training of laboratory technicians. While many come to these companies with biology degrees and a sound grounding in science, they often lack specific knowledge of meeting the regulatory-issue guidelines or the proper disposal of toxic medical waste material that they routinely encounter on their jobs. Having a customized training coordinator who can bring together the proper agencies, educational institutions and private resources as necessary to provide such training will be invaluable to our vision of creating a world-class, globally-competitive 21st-century economy here.

So, welcome, Jennifer. You are, indeed, an important part of building a future Snohomish County that will be good for everybody and for all the right reasons.

Deborah Knutson is President of the Snohomish County Economic Council. She can be reached at 425-743-4567 or by e-mail to dknutson@snoedc.org.

Back to the top/February 2001 Main Menu