Remarks by Assistant Secretary Emily Stover DeRocco

South Central Kansas WIRED

Wichita, KS
December 7, 2007

Thank you, Governor. It is a real pleasure to join you again. Governor Sebelius has been a fantastic leader when it comes to workforce and talent development issues, and I am proud to have the opportunity to work with her in now two WIRED regions in the State of Kansas.

Mayor Conway, thank you so much for being here today and for demonstrating commitment and leadership to this regional effort.

Today is a very exciting day for me and not only because I get to visit one of our new third generation WIRED regions. For the past several years, I have had the opportunity to travel all across the United States, visiting big cities and small towns as they seek to both confront the challenges of globalization and capitalize on the opportunities of a new innovation economy.

In nearly every place, I told the story of Boeing's latest aircraft, the 787, and how it is manufactured all around the globe including right here in Wichita, as a way to showcase how both companies and regions can position themselves to succeed in the global economy. Well this morning I had the chance to finally visit Spirit AeroSystems and see where the cockpit for this engineering marvel is made. It is an absolutely amazing process and I can't wait to add a personal touch the next time that I tell the story.

Of course, it isn't just Spirit and the Boeing production that are found here in Wichita and the South Central region. Names like Cessna, Lear, and Beech made this region an icon in global aviation for several generations. Though many of the names have changed, Wichita is still one of the top aerospace design and manufacturing clusters in the country.

While dozens of manufacturers make up the core of this cluster, they are supported by a number of other assets in the region. The most obvious is Wichita State University. Between the National Institute for Aviation Research, the Center for Entrepreneurship, and the College of Engineering, Wichita State is providing the talent to design and build the next generation of airplanes using composite materials. Their expertise in composites also opens the door to other industries and provides this area with the opportunity to build a more diversified high tech economy.

The combination of a growing cluster with the university's research and development focus gives South Central Kansas a head start on building an innovation economy and offers tremendous opportunity to the citizens of both this region and the entire state.

But in order for individuals to take advantage of those new opportunities, they must achieve higher levels of education. It was only a generation ago that our parents could graduate from high school and find a job that would allow them to raise a family, afford a mortgage, and save for retirement. That world no longer exists.

Last year, individuals with a Bachelor's Degree saw five times the job growth, twice the earnings, and half the unemployment as individuals with just a high school diploma. And that disparity is only going to increase. Over the next decade, 90% of the fastest growing jobs and 63% of all new jobs are going to require post-secondary education. These numbers reflect our increasing focus on innovation and show that education is the pathway to prosperity in today's and tomorrow's economy.

This new reality led us at the Labor Department to begin to rethink our role in the economy. My agency, the Employment & Training Administration, invests over $10 billion a year in workforce development programs. For many years, these activities were more focused on social services and on finding individuals jobs at the low end of the spectrum. But as the world around us transformed, so too must the workforce investment system. In response, we created the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development Initiative or WIRED.

WIRED is not a typical federal grant program. In fact, I don't call it a grant at all. Instead, I prefer to think of WIRED as a force, with investments in regions acting as seed capital to catalyze action, alignment of existing resources, and additional investments.

To help regions take full advantage of this force, we established a set of priorities or pillars around which WIRED was built. They range from the importance of thinking and acting regionally, to focusing your strategies on innovation industries, to integrating the efforts of workforce and economic development.

But if South Central Kansas, or any region for that matter, is going to achieve these goals and fully utilize and align their array of assets, it must begin with a strong and stable partnership. This isn't simply for all the organizations to get along, but instead for each to bring their unique talents and fill specific needs.

It probably isn't possible to think too broadly when it comes to partnerships. Obviously businesses and business organizations as the true economic engines must be present. So too must education providers, including secondary schools, community and technical colleges, and four-year colleges and universities. The economic and workforce development organizations that foster and grow both business and talent should be included as well. These form the core of any regional partnership and represent the basic assets of any region.

But then there are other more non-traditional partners like foundations and the philanthropic community and the angel and venture capital groups that help bring mind to market. The breadth of these partnerships shows that the design of workforce development has changed and that many public, private, and non-profit organizations have a role to play as partners in the development of an educated and skilled workforce.

It is also critical to your success. WIRED isn't about simply funding a handful of individual projects that disappear three years from now when our funding goes away. It's about building a sustainable effort with long-lasting impacts, and that requires partners who come to the table not simply to divide up the money that we have put there, but to add their own. This expands the overall investment and ensures continued and on-going support not only for the principles and projects of WIRED, but also for the vision and strategy of this region.

Of course, much of the same can be said for the federal government as well. Through a myriad of departments and agencies, we send tens of millions of dollars every year into every region of the country. Since we are asking our WIRED regions to be strategic about how they invest and leverage funds, we felt it important to follow our own advice. So over the last year and half we have developed working relationships with over a dozen other federal agencies to support our WIRED regions through funding, resources, and expertise. Several examples that I believe will resonate in this region include:

1. A technology transfer pilot project with the Department of Commerce's Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Using the resources of both WIRED and MEP centers, we hope to identify technologies at large universities and large manufacturers that can be licensed or transferred to smaller companies and used to expand their business.



2. Another pilot program with the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program has three of our regions receiving resources and intensive coaching from NSF in hopes of securing a multi-million dollar center at their regions' community college to train individuals to be technicians in cutting edge industries.

In addition to these special projects, several other Departments have invested funds and designated parts of our WIRED regions for special consideration. And now, we are beginning to see a shift in how the federal government provides funding to states and local areas, taking into account the overall economic strategy and partnership of a multi-county region. As a WIRED region, you will have the opportunity to take advantage of these changes to both expand and enhance your existing strategies.

When we first started the WIRED Initiative last February, I made it a priority to visit every one of the regions. You can read a proposal or look at statistics about a region, but you cannot fully understand its character, its culture, and its opportunity unless you go there and see it, hear it, and feel it for yourself.

It is quite obvious that this region has both the people and the assets to be a real engine of our innovation economy. You are also fortunate to have a tremendous leader in Governor Sebelius. She is someone who understands America's role in the global economy and the importance that talent and talent development programs will play in ensuring our success.

Governor, it is always an honor to join you. Thank you so much for inviting me here today and I look forward to working with you and achieving great things here in Kansas in the months and years ahead.

Thank you.