1. Regional Industry-Driven Centers of Excellence as a Vehicle for Investment in Innovation
Scott Sheely
Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board
Lancaster, PA
“A Demand-Driven Incubator Site”

2. Industry Cluster Analysis
Foundational for understanding what industries are important within the local industrial mix;
Which industries are growing and which are failing?
Which industries are growing good jobs?
In what career ladders should we invest?

4. Moving to Action Shared understanding and vision;
Action by policymakers to institutionalize the vision;
Give clear direction to the existing system that change is expected;
Begin changing the things that you control;
Start trying to influence what you don’t control.

5. Concentrate on What You Can Do
Spend more time developing better intelligence about businesses;
Occupational information;
Career ladder mapping;
Skill mapping;
Really address employer relations with the right people;
Strategic;
Operational;

6. Concentrate on What You Can Do
Focus on priority industries;
In contracting;
In the way one-stops are structured;
In bringing funding streams together;
Educate your staff;
Develop relationships;
Economic development;
Educators.

7. Drilling Down Industry cluster analysis is historical;
Problem facing most of America is how do companies stay competitive in the world marketplace…forward-looking;
Cost and process control will get us so far;
Innovation is the key;
New products;
New technologies;
New companies.

8. Deep and Wide Every cluster has a local competitive advantage;
Challenge is to identify what that is;
Need to build an innovation system that supports the competitive advantage;
Wide…all of the partners
Deep…concentrating on the right thing;

9. Regional Industry-Driven Centers of Excellence
Centers of Excellence are normally attached to universities, hospitals, or government entities (NASA, NIH);
Our Centers focus on enhancing local competitive advantage;
Pulling together many actors to accomplish the task.

10. Functions of a Center Research and Development; Technology Transfer;
Entrepreneurial Development;
Incumbent Worker Training;
Connection to K-12 and Higher Education for Career Ladder Development.

11. In Lancaster County Industry Clusters Health Care Biotechnology
Ag and Food
Communications
Construction
Metals and Metal Fabrication
Automotive
Centers
Long-Term Care Practice
Packaging Ops
Production Agriculture
Construction Tech
Wood Finishing
Automotive Tech

12. Structure of Centers
Part of Lancaster Prospers, a coalition of economic development partners in Lancaster County;
One of seven strategies;
Run by the WIB which functions as the administrative entity providing fiscal, staffing, and promotional support;

13. Structure of Centers
Each has a host organization which may or may not be an educational institution;
Each has a Steering Committee which is entirely private sector and a Support Committee of everyone else;
Website is the public face of the organization.

14. Wood Finishing
Competitive advantage of a large concentration (4,000+ employees) of high-end custom kitchen cabinet manufacturers (75+ employers);
Shortage of skilled finishers;
No established skills curriculum in companies or at schools;
R & D rests mostly with vendors.

15. Wood Finishing Steering Committee operational;
Contracted with company to develop curriculum in conjunction with a standard-setting organization…American Wood Finishing Institute;
Found R & D partners in ETAC, an EPA-oriented organization, and Penn State School of Forest Resources;
Networking with Hardwood Development Council;
Incumbent worker training consortium with ten companies.

16. Packaging Operations
Packaging is at the heart of the biotechnology and ag and food clusters in the area;
No packaging technology programs in the region;
Higher-end process control skill training not available at any institution;
R & D…big guys have it internally…little guys are at the mercy of vendors.

17. Packaging Operations Support Committee operational;
Hired two engineers to do assessment of capacity of schools to upgrade and of the state-of-the-art in packaging technology among companies;
Cooperating with NSF recipient in MN on curriculum development;
Hershey Foods driving force in training area technical school teachers;
Three WIBs, ten county area;
32-company Food Training Consortium already in place.

18. What We’ve Learned
Think deep and wide…deep understanding of the industry…wide in terms of linkages with other entities;
Think beyond workforce to innovation;
Think beyond WIA in funding.

19. For More Information Scott Sheely Executive Director
Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board
313 W. Liberty St.
Suite 114
Lancaster, PA 17603