How to go
What: Workforce Development Center Open House
When: 9 to 11 a.m. Thursday, May 16
Where: Cincinnati State Middletown, 1 N. Main St.
Info: The event will serve as an exchange of information about training, development and collaboration opportunities in the Middletown area. Regional employers, economic development professionals and workforce development staff have been invited to the event.
To attend: For area business owners or managers, call 513-569-4945.
Being able to train the workforce in the greater Middletown area was one of the key reasons the city recruited Cincinnati State Technical & Community College to open a downtown campus.
The Middletown campus will host an event May 16 to showcase the partnership with Middletown businesses and the college’s Workforce Development Center, said Brian O’Keeffe, Workforce Development Center operations manager.
“It’s a chance to sit down with some of the folks we’ve worked with in the Middletown area, and to show off what we have done and what we can do,” he said.
A select number of area businesses have been invited to attend, O’Keeffe said, but the event is open for any area business who wants to have a better-trained workforce.
Tracy Intihar, executive director of the Office of Workforce Transformation, will speak at the open house and provide an overview of what her office, which was created by Gov. John Kasich in 2012, does, and its three goals.
“The governor early on understood the importance of workforce,” she said. “He believes strongly that to grow the economy and jobs in Ohio, we need to have a robust workforce.”
“The ultimate goal of our office is to create a more unified and better aligned workforce system that supports business in meeting its workforce needs,” Intihar said
Cincinnati State’s Workforce Development Center is headquartered in Evendale and opened a fulltime office after the Middletown campus opened last year.
Rep. Tim Derickson (R-Hanover Twp.) has been a champion for workforce development in the Statehouse for years, and said Ohio has made “incredible strides” in offering these opportunities.
“Any college campus that does not involve themselves with workforce development will not be successful in this day and age,” he said. “Workforce development is simply what our population needs. They need training, they need new skills. What Cincinnati State is doing, they’ve recognized that people have these needs that unemployed and underemployed workers need their help.”
Cincinnati State Middletown is important to the city, and the region, as the school that can train and educate a broad area, Derickson said.
“Middletown was home to many manufacturing companies that simply are not there today,” Derickson said. “We have a great workforce but that workforce simply needs the skills or training that they don’t have, or haven’t needed to acquire in the past.”
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