US Chamber Invests in Our Community’s Work
Originally published in the Las Cruces Sun-News on Monday, February 3, 2020
Talent drives economic prosperity.
Talent (in the form of a well-skilled person) is built through education and training. Talent then becomes the greatest asset of any business or public sector employer. Talent, employed in local industries vital to the economy, renders life-long financial rewards to the individual, their family, community, and state in which they live.
Communities across the country are working furiously to meaningfully close talent gaps (misalignment between education and employment) to drive business retention, expansion, and attraction. It was this very conversation in the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce in 2007 that launched The Bridge of Southern New Mexico in 2009 with this as its sole mission.
The US Chamber of Commerce has become a driving force in advancing similar, business-led strategies across the country through its Talent Pipeline Management (TPM) initiative. And, it turns out, they see great value in ours.
The Bridge, the Workforce Talent Collaborative, and our comprehensive approach to talent development are viewed by the US Chamber as national exemplars. And I invited to represent our community’s work as part of the US Chamber Foundation’s Business Leads Fellowship Program’s Elite Cohort.
The Business Leads Fellowship Program is part of the TPM initiative. The Fellowship is designed to build a national coalition of business leadership on education and workforce issues. The Elite Cohort consisted of 35 leaders from California to Georgia and New Haven, CT to Houston, TX.
Invited and fully funded by the US Chamber’s foundation, we came together to learn from each other and national and global experts on how to get better at our respective work: navigating and managing change, using data to inform and drive change, the power of storytelling, and building sustainability for our efforts.
The investment of the US Chamber in Doña Ana County’s work is invaluable. The relationships established there and information shared will help guide us in our next steps.
But, here were the key takeaways. First, the forward-thinking leaders in our chamber set our community up for success by establishing The Bridge as the place where leaders could work together on these issues.
Most of the cohort represented state or large metropolitan chambers of commerce, and they were grappling with how to meaningfully engage with K-12 districts, post-secondary partners, and workforce providers in their communities. With The Bridge’s board of directors and the members of the Collaborative, these relationships are baked into the work. We all share the same goals and work together in mutual accountability to achieve them.
Second, we need fully integrated data systems from K-12 to post-secondary to workforce. Kentucky has created an amazing platform for integration of data to tell a compelling story about the connections between education and employment and the future of work. It is clearly something that we need to focus on and leverage our resources and relationships to replicate.
Third, stories and narrative are among the most valuable assets we have. The website www.NewMexicoTrueTalent.organd the accompanying communications campaign have given us a strong foundation for building awareness. Change requires clarity: “why” we need the change, “how” does it benefit you/us, “who” can help make the change, and “what” does change look like today and for the future. I realized this is an asset that we simply must invest in even more – getting it (figuratively) into the hands of our New Mexico True Talent at any age.
I am so thankful to the US Chamber for making this investment in our work. The lessons learned are already being shared with our partners, inspiring new initiatives, with more conversation and sharing to come.
And, most importantly, I want to thank The Bridge’s Board of Directors (past and present) and the members of the Workforce Talent Collaborative, who have made our work among the best in the nation!
