[Music] hello i'm david sears i'm a senior vice president for advancement and community engagement at montgomery college thank you for joining us today for our workforce of tomorrow series where you can hear from experts about our county and state's current and future workforce needs in my role at the college i have co-oversight of pickmc the pinkney innovation complex for science and technology this is a life sciences and tech hub and it's the result of a partnership with montgomery county to spur job growth by bringing employers to the county employers that locate in pick mc are eager to hire our local talent as well as partner with other talent tenants in the faculty on our campus and that's what makes us unique what makes pickmc really unique this is where job growth and talent development happen together given its location on a community college campus as you know the pandemic has exacerbated changes in our local and global economy the economic toll has left many people out of work or at risk while many of the jobs lost won't return some industries like life sciences and health sciences need to fill open positions as we think about bringing more employers and jobs to montgomery county how can we ensure residents get access to those jobs what are future jobs that we should expect and what kind of talent do employers need now and in the future today it's my pleasure to welcome three guests who will help us think through these big questions first is angela graham president and ceo of quality biological incorporated a biotech company founded right here in montgomery county she's also a member of our pickmc board we're also joined by another industry leader anise cody president of holy cross health network of course holy cross is a leading employer in our county and is the anchor tenant and partner for pickmc and i'm delighted to have brad stewart senior vice president of business development for montgomery county's economic development corporation who can offer his data insights mcedc is charged with driving economic growth in the county to help attract and retain employers so welcome to all of you thank you dave thank you so our first question today and i'll provide a little bit of context to it is what are today's unfilled jobs in montgomery county and how are those jobs being filled so let's dive in while the federal government is a larger employer in the county montgomery's economic economy has diversified over the last 20 years but as a key workforce provider the college is attuned to the new jobs and on the horizon like the quantum tech field as well as the chronic skill gaps like those in cyber security which has thousands of positions open across our state so employers are looking for workers who are ready to step into new jobs as they grow as well as existing open positions so let's start with you brad can you help us to understand where today's unfilled jobs are in montgomery county and also in the region yeah well thanks dave i appreciate it and thank you for having us here obviously there are a lot of jobs that are available everywhere in the country and we have the same sort of problem there's jobs in the hospitality sector whether it's in hotels or restaurants that are sort of widely available throughout the country delivery and and other things like that retail but here some of the biggest challenges we have are really um within the life sciences industry the technology fields um and skilled labor uh trades people are doing construction whether they're electrical or other types of skilled trades and as most other parts of the country there's a definite need for people in the healthcare space also right and a few follow-up questions for you brad would you talk about montgomery county's unemployment rate and what are the skills gap affecting this rate yeah we we're lucky in many ways here in montgomery county our unemployment rate right now is about 5.6 percent uh at the peak of the pandemic it only went up to 8.6 which is a lot but it's uh compared to the rest of the country was quite small part of that's due to the fact that immediately before the pandemic our unemployment rate was at 2.8 which is almost unsustainably low that that just means there's not enough people available looking for work every job is filled every employee is has got a job so for us right now it really is trying to match appropriate skills to the appropriate jobs that are out there i mentioned some of the obvious ones like most people have and hospitality and healthcare and retail but there are tremendous number of jobs available particularly in the life sciences space and technology spaces some of those in technology can be intermediately skilled to very highly skilled people who are familiar with coding cyber security we have a large gap here in the region with people with security clearances which is a tremendous demand that's been increasing significantly over the past two years on the life sciences front we have a huge expansion here of the life sciences industry that was already looking for talent and those jobs are much more diverse than people expect they are frequently their types of jobs that people can have with sometimes certifications sometimes associates degrees sometimes bachelor's degrees they're not all phd level scientists working in a lab so we've been an incredibly good partner with montgomery college in helping develop some of the talent for these life sciences jobs great thank you and then brad what is the role of the montgomery county economic development corporation in this space well our our first role is trying to make sure that we have jobs available here for people so whether it's helping to make sure the companies that are here grow to make sure when they grow they grow here in montgomery county and not somewhere else but it also is attracting companies here to montgomery county from other parts of the state of the region the nation and much more so on a global perspective we have a large number of global companies that are choosing to make montgomery county their headquarters and for us it's really trying to work with our partners uh like montgomery college to make sure there's a clear understanding of what those companies need from a workforce perspective uh and what migrant college is able to deliver to them great thank you brad let's move on to our second question which is what is the impact of skills gaps on employers while the pandemic has significantly hurt some industries like hospitality and child care others are growing exponentially the county has strong tech biotechnology health sciences and other industry sectors that's why montgomery college prepares students to become future cyber analysts bench workers nurses and more so my next question is for you angela tell us about what's going on in your company give us the view from where you sit as an employer oh well thank you dave again for asking me to to join in this conversation um yes it's actually a very busy time within our biotech economy here in the county and specifically for quality biological we manufacture support the manufacturing requirements for a lot of the research going on and even the coveted vaccines that are being gen you utilize today so my company we manufacture the reagents and a lot of reagents used in um r d as as well as manufacturing so we do large-scale bioprocessing and further manufacturing so this inquiry requires us to have a skilled workforce but from a manufacturing perspective so again as brad was saying a few moments ago not every position in life sciences requires a phd we actually have a larger manufacturing force so requiring not only you know bachelor's degree but some positions where that are just a certificate would be sufficient and or a high school degree because we do a lot of training of the individuals that we need and i think that's the key it's the ongoing training it's the constant need to stay current with new technologies that come out and oftentimes that means additional certifications and that's why we've partnered with montgomery college and universities of shady grove to work with how do we take people who are not in the industry and give them skill sets that would prepare them to move into the industry as well as further educating those employees that we have that need to continue to refresh their training and i think that is really what is needed and what we as the uh companies in the industry see in this space now is the um the opportunity and the need for further training so that there is constantly this upgrading of skills that are needed as we evolve within the industry that's great thank you angela our third question is how do montgomery county's growth and changes play into determining talent needs and jobs of tomorrow just like the county has grown holy cross has expanded its operations to bring more health care options to residents particularly in the up county area with holy cross germantown hospital located in pickmc at our germantown campus that means more doctors nurses surgical techs radiation techs lobotomists and more are needed so local talent development in addition to opening doors for residents enables employers to reflect the communities they serve and we all know the wonderful tapestry that as our community montgomery college alone illustrates this with students healing from more than 155 nations and our student body is now 78 percent students of color so this question goes to aenesis given holy cross's location at pick mc clearly your institution values access to local talent so in regard to health care and these help us to understand how holy cross thinks about filling out its workforce across its locations and what do you see as a workforce challenge for your industry sector or the county in general thanks dave so in terms of challenge that the demand for healthcare jobs as brad mentioned is just keeps growing and i think it's really driven by three primary factors the first is the aging of our population as more and more people are a higher percentage of our population is over the age 65 those are folks who need more health care services so that's a push for more demand and then as angela knows that improving technology really allows us to expand our capabilities so we can expand what we can do in diagnostics and treatment and that expands the need for additional workers and finally the pandemic really opened up the recognition of the field of public health and the important role that it plays in disease surveillance infection control but also in things like recognizing how social factors like food and housing and education can affect people's health health and trying to integrate healthcare delivery with those issues so in terms of holy cross specifically we have about 4 000 employees and like all health systems in the area we are always looking for new talent there are three important things that i think about when we're looking for new talent the first as you said that hiring local talent is really important not just because it's the most accessible but studies show and our experience plays out that we are most effective in building trust with our patients when our workforce reflects the diversity of the community in addition when we build talent and hire locally we support economic development and that enhances the well-being of our community as a whole which is an important part of our mission as well we also see like the others that there are so many different types of skills that are needed in health care systems some are obvious like clinical skills but there are many jobs that require technical skills like working in the pharmacy or the lab and many more people who work in more traditional business skills in i.t or finance or human
resources so we need all of those different skills to make our health systems work and then finally in addition to a broad range of skills the amount of training that's necessary does vary tremendously there are some positions like a position that requires many years of school but we have a lot of positions such as a certified nurse assistant or a pharmacy tech or certified medical assistant that students can um receive their certification in a much shorter course of study so it's a huge range that's available that's great thank you anis and our fourth question is actually for each of you as we think about bringing more jobs to montgomery county how can we ensure residents get access to those jobs so montgomery county like almost all regions is focused on economic development and we've talked about current employers and their workforce needs brad helped us think about job growth for the county to help our community thrive economically as a member of the pickmc board angela helped the colleges work to recruit employers to locate here on mc's germantown campus bringing more jobs to our community and as a niece just discussed holy cross brings more jobs as it's expanding its services so for all of you and i'll start with brad i'd like to ask your thoughts on this question how do we continue to create strong linkages between job and talent growth is building homegrown talent to close skill gaps and fill new jobs a key to a thriving economy and community so brad we'll start with you dave absolutely it is i think one of the things that we really need to do is continue to build partnerships between the companies that are here looking for employees in our educational system and the community as i mentioned before if you look at the life sciences industry and angela talked about the diversity of types of jobs that are there we have a huge booming what we call advanced biomanufacturing space here in life sciences where there are hundreds if not thousands of jobs that are becoming available over the next year or two in people manufacturing cell therapies gene therapies a variety of other things like that and the types of skill sets uh that that are necessary are diverse uh as is the workforce and a lot of times people just aren't aware of what these types of jobs are or the fact that they could go to montgomery college and get some of the best training in the country to work in these uh very rewarding very high-paying jobs so i think it's really those two things it's it's how do we make sure that the employers uh have a good dialogue with the the educational institutions so that they know what their needs are and can help fill them and it's really how do we work reach out to our community and talk to the people in the community and let them know that there are jobs available that are very fulfilling very rewarding uh and don't always require intimidating amounts of education to be successful at that's great angela do you want to expand on that yeah i'll piggyback on that and you know it's interesting i think that you know success will be there it is a lot of years of education but i think i would tweak a little bit brad of what you said it may not be four consecutive years for one degree i think that where we're moving to as a whole in most of our industry or many of the industries that we're talking about it's this consistent need to constantly upgrade your skills because as technology changes so rapidly what you may be certified to do for the first couple years you know next thing technology everything is advanced so then you need no new skills so what we're actually seeing is very much like in the cyber security space you know if you go to you know you you might often needs like all these what i guess you would consider stackable credentials so that you continue to evolve and grow and i think that if we do a better job of linking not only from we talk often about people already in this space or industries but starting at the high school level and do you know start partnering there to to make sure that you know individuals in our community understand what all the opportunities are whether they want to come out of high school and immediately go into a four-year degree that maybe they're very passionate about or they want to explore some different careers or different technologies that they can eventually decide what they want to do i think the key is that we are a community that has opportunities for everyone so um you know coming out with different certifications and and consistently improving upon those skill sets to then be able to move into different i guess skill levels or within a company to really explore the different industries i think that will be not only great for the community but it will have a workforce that will then attract more companies to come here and dave if i can add to that i think angela made an important point of this education doesn't have to be you know linear in the way that we typically think about it it's interesting i was having a conversation last week with an employer that's going to be looking for hundreds of new employees over the next couple of years and i had the same discussion so what type of people do you need what types of skill sets and they remark that one of the biggest potential pools they see are veterans and i asked well you know what types of jobs in the military are really the ones that you find helpful this was a life sciences company looking for employees and interestingly it wasn't just the medical field that you might think of it was people who worked in some medical support radiology but they were talking about people who worked in the nuclear fields who who were managing armaments and other things like that where they had very high levels of control necessary to do their jobs and a lot of precision in the work they were doing which translates very well to the type of work that's being done in life sciences i mean it's a very highly regulated industry where you want people who can do things reproducibly time after time so uh i think it's these types of dialogues where people say well wait a minute that's me and maybe that's something i should consider because there really are i think some unique opportunities becoming available for people agreed any other thoughts you have yeah you know just to build on what brad was saying i recently was listening to a podcast where i heard arne duncan who is a former u.s secretary of education under president obama talking about the importance of bringing opportunity to where talent is rather than limiting opportunity to those who are well positioned to take advantage of it so it made me think of it when brad was talking about you know going after specific groups like veterans because they're a talented population but the need is to bring the opportunities to them and i'd say our relationship with montgomery college has been really important in helping to bring opportunities to students one of the ways we do that is by offering clinical rotations and other on-site learning opportunities in our hospitals and our ambulatory sites and what that does it's a great way to help students gain real world experience that's related to what they're learning and really enriches what they're learning and it helps them to be better prepared to hit the ground running when they finish their studies and can start a new job so that's one important thing that montgomery college does and they also do this through a variety of outreach programs like their partnership with the montgomery county public schools and the community engagement centers and workforce development programs all of which are really important for casting that broad net to attract and then develop that talent thank you anis so in closing i just want to say thank you to angela graham anis cody and brad stewart thank you for sharing your insights today you've helped us to think critically about jobs and the needs of current and future employers and importantly you've helped us to think about the linkage between talent development and job growth so thank you for sharing your thoughts and your time today and before we go i'm going to start with angela any closing thoughts from you dave i'd just like to uh again thank you for having me on this and i also want to thank montgomery college for the partnerships that you are already doing with the community and and encourage you to continue to do so it's been i think one thing that we haven't discussed that i'd like to again say thank you to montgomery college for is that the work that you already do with existing companies with um workforce development but is also training our uh current employees right to continue to grow them and it's always been very helpful and supportive because anytime we've needed any sort of training all i need to do is pick up the phone and you know your your staff is always very good about helping us design curriculum that's supportive of what we need thank you thank you anis any closing thoughts uh just again thanks for the opportunity to talk about healthcare and we're always looking for talented folks from the community and building that strong community base is uh important so any opportunity to talk about the uh how we can do that and in partnership with montgomery college always happy to do so thank you and brad any closing thoughts from you yeah well dave i'd like to thank you and montgomery college for being such a great partner uh not only to the people who live here in montgomery county but the employers here in montgomery county and i think angela and denise both said it uh it's not just helping to bring people into the workforce it's really a great place to go to help develop employees and i think that's one of the things we all want to do is how do we keep moving people along in their careers and help enable their success and my government college is a great partner in doing that great well thank you again to the three of you and thank you all for joining us today for our workforce of tomorrow series take care [Music] you
2021-10-25