Emily Stover DeRocco Speech
Job Corps 40th Anniversary
Washington, DC
September 15, 2005
Good morning! It is great to be back with Job Corps again. I understand you had quite a show last night. Congratulations to all the participants and to the Job Corps Centers for cultivating such a great group of talent.
For the last several weeks all eyes in Washington, and across the nation, have turned to our Gulf Coast and the devastation and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless and jobless and one of the greatest and most historic cities in the United States has been nearly destroyed.
This disaster has presented our nation with a host of great challenges, from the immediate humanitarian needs of the people evacuated from the region, to the short term clean up and repair of a devastated area the size of Great Britain, to the longer term questions of how to rebuild and restore the towns of Biloxi and Gulfport and the city of New Orleans.
As governments, non-profits, and businesses work to meet those challenges, I am proud to say that the Department of Labor, the Employment & Training Administration including the Job Corps have been leaders in these efforts.
Thirty-four Job Corps centers from as close as the Gulf Region and as far as Alaska have begun disaster relief efforts to aid the evacuees of Hurricane Katrina. These efforts include the deployment of 46 staff and 253 students from the Job Corps family to the Gulf Coast region.
There are three stories about these individuals that I have heard in recent days and I would like to share with you:
- First, during the initial couple days of this disaster we all saw news footage of the survivors gathering at the New Orleans Convention Center, and heard stories about the awful conditions that they faced. Well today, The Lyndon B. Johnson Job Corps Center in Franklin, North Carolina has a team of students and instructors at the Convention Center participating in the clean up efforts. Their work will help to restore a city landmark and one of the best Convention Centers in the country.
- Second, one of the hardest parts of any evacuation is tending to the sick and infirmed. In New Orleans, this was made much more complicated by the potentially harmful water that had filled the city. To help with this monumental task, the Flatwoods Job Corps Center in Coeburn, Virginia sent 30 students and instructors. They have worked 16-hour shifts as part of the medical evacuation and transport mission. The evacuation moved more than 2,000 patients to safety and medical care in hospitals around the country.
- And finally, there is a remarkable story of bravery and commitment from the Gulfport Job Corps Center. Before Katrina hit, it was pretty clear that Gulfport, Mississippi was directly in its path. After everyone from the Gulfport Job Corps Center was evacuated, a security guard named Robert Powe volunteered to stay behind at the center to maintain the security of the property. A number of times over the ensuing hours and days, he ran looters off of the property. Despite losing his own home, he took care to watch over the Gulfport Job Corps home until others could make it back to the campus.
What an amazing and uplifting story!
It is in the wake of this tragedy and heroism that we are gathered here to celebrate 40 years of Job Corps making a difference in young people's lives. You have given hope to millions of America's next generation, providing them the education and skills that will serve them for a lifetime.
But while birthdays provide us with a reason to celebrate, they also offer us an opportunity to look ahead, to plan what we as individuals or we as Job Corps wish to achieve in the next 5 or 10 or 40 years. And this, more than a celebration of the past, is what this gathering is about.
For the future is going to bring greater change than any we have experienced or imagined over the last 40 years. The world is now witnessing one of the great economic transformations in history. The twin revolutions of technology and information have ushered in the era we know as globalization. This era is marked by tremendous advances in communications, travel, and trade, allowing individuals instant access to commerce from almost anywhere in the world.
For the United States, this transformation presents an obvious challenge to our economy. Service companies from across the oceans now have the tools to compete with U.S. businesses while foreign manufacturers have the human labor to produce goods at a lower cost. But transformation has also defined our role in the global economy as the creator and producer of new and innovative goods and services. To fill this role and maintain our leadership of the global economy requires a creativity and innovation only found in an educated and skilled workforce.
To meet this challenge and fill our role as leader of the global economy, we must not rely on the systems and structures built to support our 20th century economy. Instead, we must transform them to meet the very different needs of today's economy.
For Job Corps, this means that the educational foundation and skills training that we offer students must be improved. Today's jobs require more than a basic education. They require stronger math, computer, and communication skills. They also require more specialized training. Employers no longer have the luxury of lengthy training programs for new recruits. Employees must add immediate value to a company and that can only happen if they possess a strong education and skill set.
To create a system that is truly valuable in today's economy requires more than our own efforts. We must partner with the businesses and industries that are driving economic growth in our regions and with the education institutions that offer specialized courses.
There are examples of this already happening. Ironically, one of them is at the Carville Job Corps Center outside of New Orleans where the American Petroleum Institute designed a training program to provide energy companies with much needed workers. In the coming months and years, all of our centers and all of our training programs should offer similar examples of partnership and progress.
For forty years, Job Corps and its family have been dedicated to educating and preparing America's youth. Let us continue to build on that tradition by bringing Job Corps into the global economy.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today and now please welcome Job Corps' National Director, Grace Kilbane.
