Darlington County Economic Development Partnership moves to hire consultant
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
A large part of attracting new development or encouraging current industries to expand is having the ability to provide a skilled workforce. During its March 21 meeting, the Darlington County Economic Development Partnership Board of Directors took a step toward finding ways to increase the skilled workforce in Darlington County.
After much discussion, and a suggestion from DCEDP Director Frank Willis, boardmember Stuart Ames made a motion to hire a local retired educator to serve as a consultant for the board and local manufacturers.
“My motion is that we get (Darlington County) Progress to fund a person unknown, an individual who has an education background, to work with us and with the industries, between us and the schools, to help them to know what the industries need and what the schools can do to work with them,” Ames said.
Willis told boardmembers that having someone with an educator’s background will help local schools know how best to prepare their students who aren’t interested in going to college and will be entering the local workforce.
“If we hire an educator, someone retired, to be a consultant to this group and to the manufactures,” Willis said. “That person can help us set up a committee to address these issues.”
DCEDP Chairman Roger Buckley suggested that the hiring process go through several of their standing committees so that they can help determine who the best candidate may be.
“I think we should refer this to a couple of committees, the Existing Industry Committee and the Board Development Committee,” Buckley said. “Those committees can convene a meeting to discuss the options and who should be involved. They can come back and give us a proposal. I would throw out there based on many conversations that we’ve had that we also consider somebody with more of a technical education background. Every conversation has revolved around or led to the need for the technical education.”
Also during the meeting, Willis discussed the recent Manufacturers Workshop held at SiMT. While he said that he was encouraged by the number of attendees, he also said that he needs to find a way to get more variety among those participating.
“We had about 50 people and this was the best dialogue we’ve had between the presenters and the audience,” Willis said. “However, we go back to the question that we had before. Out of the 50 people, only four of them were manufactures. And I’m not sure that that’s a bad thing but we’re still struggling to find out what it is that will get the manufacturers to the table. Maybe we need this Manufacturers Alliance to make that happen.”
Boardmember Jack Marchette agreed with Willis.
“I think we do (need the Alliance) because we need to be asking them what they need and what they want,” Marchette said. “A part of it is, there is a lot that we don’t know and they don’t even know to ask for.”
Willis said that a Manufacturers Alliance would be a tool for manufacturers to express those needs and wants. It would also be a tool for DCEDP to better understand what they can do to support local manufacturers.