BusinessTimes Prioritizing a Strong Workforce

By Matt Dougherty

During a recent interview, Heather McDaniel President of the Ithaca Area Economic Development (IAED) told the Ithaca Times that the organization’s top priorities for 2023 included strengthening the workforce in Tompkins County.

According to McDaniel, in order to take steps to improve the area’s workforce IAED added a Director of Workforce innovation last year and started to implement a small pilot program called Direct to Work. McDaniel says that Direct to Work is essentially an entry level job training program that provides pathways into the manufacturing industry.

e IAED website says that the program “is an inclusive career pathway initiative that helps [unemployed and underemployed individuals] access training programs…aimed at mitigating personal and traditional barriers” to employment. In December 2022, IAED announced that it was awarded $31,500 in grant funding to advance the Direct to Work program.

“We’re really focused this year on partnerships and collaboration with building out that program and working with partners to provide wraparound services such as communication skills training,” said McDaniel. She has also said that IAED will have other partners such as the Department of Social Services “that can help us identify candidates to put through the program.”

According to McDaniel, the program cannot guarantee that all participants will be placed in a job but it does guarantee that all participants will be given the opportunity to interview for the position.

“We had some really good success last year with some of our area partners,” said McDaniel.

IAED and its partner, Alliance for Manufacturing Technology, rolled out the DTW program in July 2022. e pilot was a 6-week self-paced training with 25 modules through a certi ed online curriculum. Participants that completed the coursework and passed the Certi ed Manufacturing Associate (CMfgA) test received a $500 stipend and were guaranteed interviews with participating manufacturers. Since the conclusion of the pilot, all program graduates have interviewed with local manufacturers; most were placed and are still employed.

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She continued saying that IAED will continue working with BorgWarner as they start to do layo s, and that if employees are not being retained as expected the Workforce Development Board will “help access the funds necessary to re-skill and re-employ those individuals.”

When asked if IAED had any plans for development in the West End McDaniel said “we do do some community development work mainly through the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency, which we administer and our downtown density policy does allow for mixed use residential commercial development in the West End and inlet Island.”

erm Human Resource Manager

Joanne Finlay added, “ erm supports IAED’s Direct to Work program and has already hired graduates coming out of the pilot. We’re excited to continue our participation in the future.”

When asked if if this program would potentially help any of the employees at the BorgWarner facility in Lansing that announced that it would be shutting down in 2024, McDaniel said that it likely would not due to the fact that “a good number of those employees will be absorbed in the existing BorgWarner plant operations.”

She continued saying that the next steps with moving forward with development in the West End aren’t concrete because “the city sets the land use rules and zoning and all of that and the projects come to us pretty late in the game and a er they have their site plan review and approvals.” McDaniel explained that the main thing IAED does is “make projects nancially feasible” by “phasing in new property taxes associated with a project.” One development where IAED has begun to help create a property tax structure to fund the project is SouthWorks, which McDaniel says is “the largest re-development project our community will ever see.” e City of Ithaca granted Site Plan Approval for Phase 1 of SouthWorks’ master plan in 2019, including the conversion of four buildings [21, 24, 33, 34] and demolition of two buildings [10A, 11A] to create open space for a courtyard, along with walkable areas for residents, tenants and visitors.

According to McDaniel, it will take roughly $25 million worth of infrastructure work before the project will reach a point where renovations can start being made to buildings so tenants can start generating revenue.

McDaniel said that a new developer took control over the site in December 2022, and that the project should begin to move forward shortly.

“ ey’ve got a signi cant amount of work ahead of them so we’re helping them access some state and federal funding to help o set some of those infrastructure costs,” said McDaniel.

She continued saying, “It’s pretty astronomical, the amount of investment, construction spending, construction labor, and then of course the permanent labor force associated with the full build out of the project.”

According to McDaniel, despite the uncertain and o entimes gloomy economic outlook both locally and nationally, IAED is paying attention to how the economy at a national and global level is going to impact local businesses.

“We spend a lot of time meeting with companies, understanding their needs, and identifying if there are any red ags that we can help with. We plan to continue to spend a lot of time doing that to make sure that businesses can stay here and grow here,” said McDaniel.

GrotonOffice 161MainStreet Groton,NY13073 607-898-5871

GrotonOffice 161MainStreet Groton,NY13073 607-898-5871

MoraviaOffice 41S.MainStreet Moravia,NY13118 315-497-2707

MoraviaOffice 41S.MainStreet Moravia,NY13118 315-497-2707