I’m delighted to be participating in this year’s People Do Matter awards – an organization I believe is making a difference in the recruitment and retention of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s workers. By embracing innovations in recruiting, the employers represented here tonight are also making positive contributions to this area’s lasting legacy of economic and industrial strength.

It would be difficult to have a conversation about this area’s economic and industrial history without mentioning one of this city’s most famous residents, Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was a shrewd businessman, and like so many of you here tonight, he placed great value in hiring a team of diligent workers. “No person will make a great business,” Carnegie once said, “who wants to do it all himself or get the credit.”

Carnegie, who retired in 1901 as one of the richest men in the world, actually started as a receptionist with the Pennsylvania Steel Company in 1853; earning a paltry $4 a week. With very little formal education and job training, the young immigrant from Scotland quickly rose through the ranks of the company and eventually became a founding member of the U.S. Steel Company.

During his ascension as a leader of a fledgling industrial America, Carnegie had a vision – a desire to shape the innovation of the day by utilizing the collective strength of the American worker and remaining responsive to emerging trends of the industrial revolution economy.

His company achieved unparalleled success by 19th century standards; and was later sold to J.P. Morgan for $480 million. But this success could not have occurred without the support of his workers – the managers, plant workers, and yes, even the secretaries earning $4 a week.

Many of the types of workers employed by Carnegie Steel – workers from legacy industries such as manufacturing, industry, and agriculture – could make an honest living in the professions they inherited from their parents. The average job for most of the 1900s provided many Americans with a comfortable lifestyle and the ability to finance a home, buy a family car, and save for retirement. Skills for these jobs were easily acquired through hands on, on-the-job training and required little to no education.

But Carnegie also caught a glimpse of the future, one where workers would not depend on their physical brawn but on their mental capacity. So with the fortune he had amassed, he created an institute, one where the children of those steelworkers could learn the hard disciplines of math and science and apply them as engineers. That institute eventually became Carnegie Mellon University, which along with the University of Pittsburgh, is now a driving force in the economy of Southwest Pennsylvania.

Carnegie was certainly ahead of his time in 1900, but his vision has never been more applicable than it is today. Just as in the late 19th century, we are in the midst of an historic economic revolution, only this one is based on advances in communications and information technology. It has created a truly global economy where services can be provided and goods can be produced anywhere in the world and then brought to market in real-time.

That global economy is changing the economic role of the United States. Jobs and industries that were here in the United States by default are now moving elsewhere in search of cheaper labor and greater efficiencies. And in its place are new, higher value jobs, ones focused on innovation and requiring greater education and more defined skills.

This is reflected in the economic projections produced by the Labor Department. In the next decade, 90% of the fastest growing jobs will require education and training beyond high school. And nearly two-thirds of those jobs will require a college degree. And this is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

12 million of the 19 million new jobs created over that decade will require post-secondary education. This is a dramatic increase in the overall education level of the population. It means that not only must our young people stay in school longer, but our current workforce must find ways to improve their skill set as well.

These changes present great challenges to all of us. From government leaders forming policies, to business leaders searching for the right employees, to colleges and universities seeking to educate the next generation while now being asked to train this generation, each of us is being called upon to transform how we have done our jobs. And we have no choice in the matter, because globalization is not a box to be checked or task to be completed. It is a new business environment to which we all must adapt.

I hope that no one sees this more clearly than the people in this room. As human resource professionals, you live with these realities every day. You are responsible for finding the workforce that will make your companies successful. And as I’m sure all of you can attest, this is sometimes as much art as it is science.

Well we at the Labor Department are trying to bring a little more science back into the equation. Between businesses, educators, and the government, we have the knowledge and the resources to create and provide a steady stream of talented workers. The challenge is aligning that knowledge and those resources.

I see this happening in a number of ways. First, educators must look to business to help them design curriculum. Whether it is community colleges, 4-year colleges, or universities, all education providers have an interest in seeing their students and graduates succeed. This is much more likely to happen if the classes provided by those schools are aligned with the demands of today’s businesses.

Of course, the onus isn’t just on colleges. Businesses and HR professionals must be willing to invest the time to work with institutions to continuously update that curriculum and even provide equipment or visiting professionals to teach the class.

Government too plays a role in this, both as the facilitator of these relationships through organizations like local Workforce Investment Boards, and also through tuition assistance, providing the resources to individuals so that they may access this training.

As part of our commitment to this process, we have provided over $530 million to 290 projects around the country to demonstrate the integration of businesses, education providers, and government. One of those projects is right here in Pittsburgh as CCAC is working with the emerging biotechnology industry to provide a continuous pipeline of skilled workers to this growing industry.

Our hope is that projects like this become just a piece of a region-wide strategy for economic and talent development. Where a constantly growing and evolving network of economic leaders not only respond to the economic environment, but help shape it by producing the talented men and women that will drive the innovation economy of Southwest Pennsylvania. If we going to continue to be the leaders of the global economy and if our children are going to be better off than us, then we have no other option.

If Andrew Carnegie were here today, he may look out across the three rivers and lament the disappearance of his once mighty blast furnaces that covered much of the waterfront. But I believe he would be proud of the research parks and next generation industries that have taken their place. It means that Pittsburgh is making a resurgence towards the preeminence it held in the American economy.

The leaders in this room are helping to make that happen and I am honored to join you tonight for this event.

Thank you.