Economic Developer Q&A

ECONOMIC DEVELOPER

Rumbarger Sees New Lee County CTC as Major Player in Shaping Future Workforce

Carl Smith

This year, Lee County Schools opened a new career and technical center (CTC) officials hope will provide the community a new pipeline of workers to fill jobs of the future.

School district stakeholders, members of the regional business community and public education supporters gathered this fall to open and tour the almost 35,000-square-foot center located at the Hive, a next-generation industrial park primed for new industries.

Connections caught up with David Rumbarger, a veteran economic developer who is the president and chief executive officer of the Tupelo-based Community Development Foundation, to discuss the impact of Lee County’s new CTC on the local economy.

Connections: Having a CTC placed in the middle of an industrial park like this must be a great recruitment tool. It’s a big deal to have a place where students can walk next door to see what jobs are available for them and to have workbased learning experiences right where they’re learning.

Rumbarger: It’s giving the CTC a great identity, because now these efforts are truly in the heart and future of industry here in Lee County. We are focused on the school-to-work pipeline, whether it’s high school, two-year college, four-year institutions of higher learning or post-fouryear experiences. The goal is to give students an experience as close to a real-life, real-career experience. Most students aren’t getting that in high school, but we have it here in Lee County. In addition to the new CTC, we’ve done several things in the past 10 years to achieve this, including career coaches — where there’s an advisor in the high school who coaches kids on their interest area. We also have a battery of interest-level testing that’s more like a conversation. It follows them down their interest area to give them career ends for those opportunities they already have a propensity toward. It gives them enlightenment so they can take elective credits their junior and senior years and then make that connection with business and industry.

Connections: What are some of the big emerging job markets of the future? What are the next-generation jobs these Lee County students will train for?

Rumbarger: Maintenance technology is the emerging demand. When I say maintenance techs, everybody thinks of custodians, but that’s not it at all. This is someone who has a technical skill and ability, whether it’s in computers, electronics or pneumatics, to diagnose and rectify problems. That troubleshooting piece is actually what makes the highest money. If you can pull a machine for maintenance, diagnose the problem and then triage and fix that problem, that is going to be a lot of companies’ most valuable job opportunity. If you have technical skills, you can become an ex-

pert in your field, and that pays tremendous dividends.

These technical skills are important, but there are a lot of interpersonal and leadership skills that workers need, too. In the new CTC, they have a number of labs where students team up together and work on projects, so they learn how to work with a group, learn how to lead or follow and learn how to work with another skill-based person who might not have the same skills they have. When you work together on a team, you have accountability with your other teammates. This teaches some peer review and peer expectations that kids sometimes aren’t getting.

Connections: How important is it for students to prepare for the changing job market?

Rumbarger: When our forefathers grew up, many of them could graduate high school, take a job in a furniture factory, work 35 years and retire with a great truck, a nice home and a piece of land. That American Dream is somewhat threatened because of international competition and the need for new skills because eventually, if you’re not technically skilled to work in the new work environment, your job is going to be replaced by some type of machinery and equipment. Unfortunately, that’s a fact. You’re reading about it now and seeing the predictions, and I’m seeing it in the factories every day when it happens.

Here’s the thing: They may take out four people in the packaging area, but they put a robot in to do that job. There are now technically skilled people programming the robot, maintaining it and feeding the robot materials and equipment. It creates a whole different dimension of jobs, but those are skilled jobs instead of an unskilled or semiskilled jobs.

Connections: How does the future of education need to evolve to meet these future needs? truest fashion, rethink our education and make it more personal. If you have 1,600 students trying to get their degrees, there needs to be that many different pathways to a diploma. Every child needs to have the ability to self-select and promote their own future to make one they feel involved in. I think that’s how you engage students, lower dropout rates and make sure people actually graduate with skills they’ll need for the future. What market in the world has not [moved to a more personalized delivery system]? Look at computers, curated clothes — everything in the world has gone that direction except education, and I think it’s time for education to go that direction.

I think this is a trend that’s going to go forward. More communities have embraced this, and I think they have a leg up on others that are just trying to maintain the status quo. What’s the reason for education, anyway? It’s to make better citizens, better workers, better parents, better husbands and wives. Communities need to embrace this and take bold steps.