EXPERIENCED HAND STATE’S FIRST WORKFORCE CHIEF BRINGS BLUE-COLLAR APPROACH

By Kenneth Heard

When talking business, Mike Rogers — the recently appointed first chief workforce officer for Arkansas — is apt to use terms and phrases like “incentivize,” “reverse engineering,” “synergy” and even “creating a portal of harmony where eHarmony meets Indeed.”

Despite his business acumen, though, Rogers doesn’t own a suit and never has. When Gov. Sarah Sanders named him to lead her newly created Governor’s Workforce Cabinet, Rogers attended the announcement ceremony in Bryant wearing a long-sleeved blue denim-like shirt with bright orange stitching that framed the pockets.

“It’s the way I am,” he said. “What you see is what you get.”

The business lingo he uses is not for show. It’s his passion and Rogers’ way of expressing excitement and optimism for the state’s workforce.

For the first 20 years of his work career, Rogers, 49, worked as an hourly maintenance and refrigeration technician at night. During the day, he taught agriculture and industrial maintenance at Siloam Springs High School. He’s also served as senior director of maintenance and refrigeration for Tyson Foods.

Rogers has been on both sides of the business realm — teaching and working. Now, he wants to use his experience for the benefit of the state.

As the state’s first chief workforce officer, Rogers is charged with advising Sanders on workforce development and career and educational strategy. It’s part of the governor’s wide-sweeping programs aimed at improving opportunities in Arkansas and creating reforms to keep people in the state and recruiting new businesses.

“It’s time for our state to build a strong pipeline of skilled, qualified workers,” Sanders said in announcing Rogers’ appointment. “Mike’s expertise will be crucial to getting that done. He has been on the ground floor of companies across our state, training young workers and developing technical education programs, making him the clear choice to lead our wholeof-government approach to this issue.”

Rogers will oversee the collaboration of six state agencies in creating strategies for developing education and a robust pool of opportunities for potential workers in the state.

The agencies are the state departments of Commerce, Education, Corrections, Labor and Licensing, Human Services and Veterans Affairs. Rogers and the Workforce Cabinet will present a plan to Sanders by Oct. 1.

Rogers has also developed six missions of the governor’s cabinet.

Members of the group will develop an overall com- munity strategy; develop a “pipeline of talent” of technical and higher education students, underemployed and unemployed; listen to what employers want from employees; establish a service that serves as a matchmaker between employers and potential employees; create types of internships and apprenticeships for various businesses; and prepare for the future of employment in Arkansas.

Rogers didn’t seek out the position he now holds. Instead, it sought him. Along with 19 other business leaders, he was asked to speak on the behalf of the state’s workforce division at a roundtable discussion during Sanders’ gubernatorial campaign.

The event was held at the Saline County Career Technical Campus, an Arkansas State University workforce training facility in Bryant.

“People knew my passion around workforce when I taught the trades and was at Tyson,” Rogers said. “My goal has always been to champion the blue-collar worker. They are undervalued and underrepresented.”

“I shared my visions and my frustrations. I said business decisions were always made by government and educators but not by the workers.”

He said Sanders contacted him after that event and asked him to head the new program she had created. Rogers confided that he wouldn’t have accepted the position if anyone other than Sanders had offered it to him.

She’s not like other politicians who may think they know all the answers, he said.

“She listens,” Rogers said of Sanders. “She surrounds herself with people who’ll give her insight. She quickly processes information, challenges the status quo and is helping better the state.”

Rogers was born in Branson and moved to Northwest Arkansas when he was 3. He’s been there since. He earned a degree in agriculture at the University of Arkansas and later completed his master’s degree in education there.

He taught at Siloam Springs High School and was the energy manager for the school district. At the same time, he worked at Frez-N-Stor and took refrigeration courses through the Refrigeration Engineers and Technicians Association.

Rogers holds six additional teaching licenses with the Arkansas Department of Education for secondary and post-secondary education. In 2016, he was the runner-up for the Arkansas Teacher of the Year.

If that wasn’t enough, Rogers is also a minister of a cowboy church in Siloam Springs.

He’s open about his faith and doesn’t shy away from discussing it – even when working for the state.

“I’m not worried about saying something that may cause me to lose my job,” he said. “I’m worried about Judgment Day for what I didn’t say.”

He said he lets his faith direct him in decision making.

“The Lord shows me how to do things,” he said.

That faith fuels his positive attitude as well.

“My whole career is about the need to innovate and reduce challenges,” he said. “I see the problem as the solution. When dealing with incarceration, we have too many inmates. We can turn that problem into a solution by preparing inmates for meaningful work during incarceration and re-entry.

“We need to ask employers what they want and incentivize. We can use the prison system like a workflow and teach inmates technical skills suited for their needs. When [inmates] are released, they will already have their resumes built and the needed experience for success.”

This would reduce recidivism in prisons, he said, and noted the same workforce principals could be used to help veterans returning from duty.

“We can use the experiences they already have,” Rogers said of veterans. “What is the best way we can develop this? By cross-walking prior duty experience to civilian jobs, we can help veterans continue to serve. We can become a state that draws from others.

“We can be a leader in this, and people would move to Arkansas for the opportunities.”

As for the potential success of the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet, Rogers equates it with cooking.

“We have to know where all the utensils are in the kitchen and work as a team bringing them together,” he said. “We can work with employers, see what they want and give them the right employees.

“It’s like baking a cake. To make it good, you start with the best ingredients and follow the recipe. The icing on the cake is that Arkansans find purpose through value-added work.”