| |
New initiative aimed at attracting tech talents
January
20, 2007
By DOUG WATERS, The Daily News
Southcentral Kentucky government leaders are
calling all those with technology and computer
savvy to come
home.
The recruiting initiative, announced Friday at
the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce,
solicits people
to invite friends and relatives who've left the
region for high-tech jobs to post resumes at a
new Web site:
http://www.southcentralky.com/jobs.
The project is aimed at bringing prospective
high-tech companies to the region as well as
adding to the ranks
of existing ones, said Buddy Steen, director of
the Central Region Innovation and
Commercialization Center at
Western Kentucky University.
The idea was conceived from a lunch conversation
he had with Jack Eversole at the Barren River
Area
Development District. Eversole, BRADD's
long-time services coordinator, told Steen that
his efforts to recruit a
more high-tech workforce to Bowling Green
sounded similar to a concept Eversole
successfully used years
ago to solve a qualified-workforce shortage for
an incoming factory that needed 400 skilled
workers.
“Everyone's falling in love with Jack's idea to
do this,” Steen said.
The project is being coordinated by the
commercialization center and the Barren River
Development Council,
which will study ways to expand the job bank to
spur regional development.
At the chamber, several southcentral Kentucky
leaders chimed in on the shared vision.
Bowling Green Mayor Elaine Walker said citizens
periodically tell her of relatives who want to
return to
Bowling Green, having left to pursue high-tech
jobs after college - if only there were
opportunities.
“That's what we are wanting - creating jobs that
will bring people back,” Walker said, adding
that “more
ammunition” is needed to stock prospective
companies eyeing Bowling Green.
“We need to show that we can provide the people
what they need,” Warren County Judge-Executive
Mike
Buchanon said.
Southcentral Kentucky boasts a broad geographic
partnership and strong elected representatives,
Buchanon
said, like House Speaker Jody Richards,
D-Bowling Green, and Sen. Richie Sanders,
R-Franklin - both
present at the meeting - as well as Sen. Brett
Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, chairman of the state
transportation
committee.
Richards was roundly praised at the meeting by
Buchanon and others for his political influence,
which made
possible Western's four-year engineering program
and funding for the commercialization center.
“Buddy Steen is here because of Jody Richards,”
Buchanon said.
Jim Hizer, president of the Inter-Modal
Transportation Authority, said the region has
the third-lowest
unemployment rate in the commonwealth. But with
the national and world economy shifting to more
high-tech
work, “we have to work equally hard to bring
people here ... (as) high-quality, high-tech,
high-pay” jobs are
replacing manufacturing.
“We're proud of our marketing efforts” to
promote the region's renowned quality of life,
he said.
In Bowling Green, the average per capita income
stands at $23,455, but the types of jobs the
joint venture
targets are in the $40,000 range, Hizer said.
The chamber released a sampling of the types of
positions sought: Wintel and Unix systems
administrators;
database administrators; mainframe programmers;
mainframe platform planners; and asset
management
analysts.
Hitcents.com, one of Bowling Green's budding
companies that could benefit from the
initiative, also sent
representatives to Friday's conference.
Scott Lewis, a sales representative for
Hitcents.com, said the company has grown from 23
employees last
year to nearly 50. More than 70 percent of its
employees are Western graduates.
Web designers, programmers, and
radio-frequency-identification technicians are
positions Hitcents.com is
always looking for, he said.
For companies pursuing federal and state
contracts for projects, in-house, high-tech
employees are
“imperative,” Lewis added.
- For more information about the new high-tech
workforce initiative and resume submission
information, call
(270) 901-4480.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2007 News Publishing LLC (Bowling
Green, KY)
|
|
|
|
|
|
