- PNC is proud to support "Business Forward" where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in Central Illinois.

(soft instrumental music) (soft instrumental music) (upbeat instrumental music) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Dr. Sheila Quirk-Bailey, President of Illinois Central College, and Don Shafer, Executive Director of IT Workforce Accelerator Project.

Welcome, Sheila.

Welcome, Don.

- Thanks Matt.

- Thanks.

- I just love having people in our community that not only wanna be here, but just positive role models.

I know we're gonna talk about something else, but what you are doing, and your team's doing at ICC, these past few years is flat out phenomenal.

You're moving mountains.

I truly mean that.

And I, I remember you coming into town back in 2016 and I've told you this before, but you know, went into your office, you already had some initiatives, you were here maybe 30 minutes, and you're already had some ideas, and things that we're gonna do, and one of the things that I love is you do not let off the gas.

And I've talked to many people, and you know how many leaders have come on this show, and I'm not saying this just cuz you're sitting right here, I truly believe it.

What ICC and what you and your team are doing right now is game-changing, and you actually are not only doing it or saying it, you're actually doing it, and I love that.

So congrats on that.

We're gonna focus this show on the IT Accelerator Grant, and I've read a lot of grants and initiatives in my time and I was blown away by the potential of, and I don't even think there's a cap on how big this initiative can be.

Is it?

- Well we have our goals, but if we braid grants and continue to work with our business partners, yeah, we can absolutely provide more service than what's there by leveraging other opportunities.

So.

- Yeah.

- Huge.

We change a thousand, at a minimum thousand people's lives.

Right, will be certified in IT.

both in the incumbent worker, people new to the industry, people who maybe got a degree in something that isn't panning out as well as IT could.

So career changers.

So you know and about your opening comments, thank you for that.

But also we are in a period in this region where people are coming together for the greater good.

- Yes.

- And that's just what it takes.

I mean, this is three higher educational institutions.

This is over 40 business partners.

This is ongoing relationships with community-based organizations for wraparound services to let people out of poverty.

I mean when we all roll in the same direction, - Yes.

the positive energy and the change we can bring to this community is just limitless.

- [Matt] Yeah.

I mean, Don, you've cared about this community, and you just love Central Illinois, period.

But when you look at the opportunity here, it is really endless, and you're talking about, Dr. Quirk-Bailey is talking about collaboration.

Collaboration, I always said people use that term, a lot of people don't know what it means.

Or a lot of people say they collaborate, and it's not even close to collaboration.

When you get Eureka, Bradley, ICC, every one of the big companies here in Central Illinois together, that's impressive.

- Right.

That's really what attracted me to this too, was the collaboration within the community.

We've been pushing that in a lot of different areas, especially on the nonprofit side as you know, from conversations that you, and I have had along with several other leaders in the nonprofit world.

And I saw this as an opportunity to go beyond just the volunteer side of things.

Beyond volunteering and educational aspects of the community.

Beyond volunteering in the workforce development within the community that Dr. Quirk-Bailey been leading for the last several years.

- Yeah.

- And making a true impact with a variety of partners in this community.

- Yeah and I'm gonna, we're gonna get into what the scope is here in a second, but when you look at a grant or program or initiative, whatever you wanna call it, a lot of times you'll sit there and go, "Well, what are the outcomes?

The outcomes are so many here, from economic development to changing lives, and poverty to, I mean education.

It's just, I'm blown away.

So Dr. Quirk-Bailey, tell us exactly in your own words, what this IT Accelerator grant is?

- So it was designed to think outside the box, and if you were going to take an industry vertical, and create a new ecosystem, right?

So we not only certify another thousand people, we systemically change how we go about this as a community.

So we never find ourselves in this situation again.

So you're talking dual credit.

You're talking lifting people out of poverty who may have never had a full-time benefited job before.

You are talking about people who have four year degrees who wanna make the switch to IT.

You're talking about people who've been in IT, but the half-life of that industry, right?

Is two and a half to three years.

So who's going to keep investing in those folks - Yeah.

- so they can continue to be productive so our companies don't fall behind?

Hard to recruit people, right?

From other places into Peoria.

There's just such a shortage everywhere.

So why don't we invest in the people we have, and this grant creates that entire ecosystem.

You know the other thing for companies is, in IT, we think every job is its own function.

Why couldn't someone start here, and then be on a path to go here, and then they upskill and they can go here, and then why don't we continue to give people promotion paths, that incense them, right?

- [Matt] Yes.

- And it's much easier to take someone you have and reinvest in them, right?

Than it is to go to the market, and try to find someone with that one specific skill you need.

Well we have educators, we have wonderful, right?

Organizations in this community.

Why couldn't ICC or Eureka or Bradley, right?

Upskill those folks.

So we're looking at the problem, not just with one lens.

We didn't say we're ICC - Yeah.

- so we want people who've never had that first college credential.

We say, what if we take a look at the whole problem and then line up everybody in the community who can contribute to that solution, and do it together.

So we're really excited.

- I think what's interesting is you said, you know, it shows a path long-term because a lot of times you know this, how many people work at ICC.

So you come in in 2016, and you're evaluating positions, and jobs and roles and job descriptions, and you're sitting there going, "Why do we have this scope when we don't even do some of that?"

- Right.

You know what I'm saying?

- Right.

And in today's world, I always use my kids as an example, but my daughters who are now 28, 26, they wanna know where they're gonna be when they're 38 and 36.

- Right?

And I think that's, I love that piece of it.

So growing the IT workforce create sustainable educational infrastructure, grow regional businesses.

Don, when you're looking at this, and you know this from being boots on the ground all the time, knowing all the businesses in the community or most of them, think about, this could touch every business out there.

- Absolutely.

And that's you know, as you mentioned, the boots on the ground part.

I didn't take very long sitting at the desk to realize I needed to start going out, and talking with not only the businesses that had provided the letters of support, but also other businesses that I know that have IT needs.

And some of those had already reached out to me, and said, "Hey, when you get in that position, give us a call 'cuz we've got needs."

- [Matt] Wow.

- And it is crossing literally every industry.

And what's even more interesting is, some of the programming that we've got in this, some of the curriculum that's in here, I'll give you an example.

Google Analytics.

As a way to get some certification.

I talked with companies that one company said, we don't want our IT people in that program, but we want our marketing people in that program.

It just makes sense.

I talked with another larger company in the area that said, we have people that have Google analytics skills in every department of the company.

- [Matt] Huh.

- So it crosses not only industry boundaries, but company boundaries of where these skillsets can be applied throughout the region.

- Well, I've known you for a long time, and you're not very good at a desk anyway.

(laughs) - You're right, I'm not.

(chuckles) - I'm not and I just but you know, part of it was to also make sure as we're, the letters of support were signed over a year ago, when we were submitting the grant.

The grant got awarded in September.

- Yep.

And so part of it was to go back out and say, "Is this still what's needed?"

We think it is, it got verified, but more importantly, what's the immediate need?

Where can we make the immediate impact in your company with this training?

Where can we make the immediate impact in terms of the new hires that you wanna bring in?

Which skillsets are the most important for us to bring to the table first for you so that we can get those people trained right away.

- Interesting.

Yeah and I think you in most times, when you're looking at a grant, scope could change, but here moving forward, technology changes all the time.

And I think when people, I'll have this to you Dr. Quirk-Bailey.

I think when people think of technology, I don't even think they know what they're talking about.

- Right.

Because there's probably a thousand different avenues.

When I think of technology here in this region.

I think of things like CSE Software, and simulators at the jump center.

And I'm thinking of cat simulators, and I'm thinking of all these different things, that's just one little piece - Right.

To what you could do here.

So I'm gonna.

Now less than 40% of adults have a post-secondary credential need 60% of jobs in Central Illinois require credential past high school.

That's amazing.

- Huge.

Huge.

And the downside of that is look at that waste of potential.

- [Matt] Yes.

- And all those individuals who could be earning a full-time benefited sustaining wage, right?

Yes.

- And the only thing they're lacking is the skillset, right?

Negative side, but potential positive side is you move to other communities in the state of Illinois, and they're not much better off.

- [Matt] Right.

But they have to import everyone, right?

So they've already got, they've already got the saturated about what they're going to get in terms of people with degrees.

Right?

Now they have to bring in other degree people.

- [Matt] Right.

I'd much rather be in the situation if we've got the population who is here and ready, and you write these grants, and you can, right?

- Yeah.

You can upskill them to where they need to be versus counting on filling all those jobs, right?

From either people moving from company-to-company, which doesn't really solve the problem, but just moves it around.

- Right.

- Or having to recruit from external.

So that's why we really believe in this grant will create an ecosystem.

We are working to develop channels so we don't find ourselves in this position again.

So what are we doing with boot camps for high school juniors, and seniors - Yes.

- to get 'em interested and put 'em right into a pathway?

And I'm gonna take a little diversion here.

Isn't Don amazing?

I mean, part of part of this collaboration is you pull in, you know, we continue to integrate in.

So you take a business executive who is well-known and well-loved in the community, right, to head up an initiative like this, - Yes.

which is primarily educational but what do we need to do?

We also need to engage with businesses.

- [Matt] Yes.

- And have them change some of their protocols as well.

And someone like Don is uniquely qualified to do that, and I just think he exemplifies the kind of collaboration and partnership we're starting to build outside of those traditional roles on all sides of this issue.

- Yeah, I'm glad you said that because when he came over to this position, I didn't understand what the position was.

So of course you know, as a friend, you don't question someone, but you just wonder, right?

And as I read the grant though, I thought to myself, this is right up his alley.

I mean, I don't think you could have picked a better person to do that.

I agree.

So when you're looking at you know, I wrote a few things down like web development, data scientists, help desks, security analysts, there are just so many positions right here.

And here's what's cool about it.

As you were talking Dr. Quirk-Bailey, I'm going back and forth 'cuz I'm kind of fired up about this.

I talk about people should love their communities all the time.

And what's neat about this is let's say that, let's say you create a thousand new opportunities or jobs.

Those people are staying here - Absolutely.

- in our community, which trickles to 5,000 other things, right?

- Right.

The net migration, that's the word that came, or the term that came to mind.

That's in some of these bigger cities right now, Peoria, Bloomington, Galesburg, Middle Illinois is making change.

Right now.

- Yes.

And this is one of those pieces.

It's pretty cool stuff.

I love it.

So how does someone Don, let's say I'm interested in applying or is there an application process?

What is the process to be part of this grant?

- It can go through the traditional ICC process of the admissions and application part of it, and that's where some of these people are gonna come from.

The upskilling piece of it within the companies, that's the outreach that we're doing.

And again, those people will indicate the interests.

I've had companies that sent me the names of the individuals along with the different areas of study that they were interested in.

- Oh yeah.

So we can reach directly out to them, get them into the process through the Illinois Central College Admission.

Same way through Bradley or Eureka in their programs.

- Yeah.

- [Don] The programs that they're, that they're looking at rolling out at the same time that we are to get people in through their traditional side of things.

The dual credit program that Dr. Quirk-Bailey mentioned is already established at ICC coming in through that program.

And then the Workforce Equity Initiative, which is another part of where the students are gonna come from, that's already established, already has its first cohort starting today.

- [Sheila] Today?

Within not only that workforce equity piece, but within the IT Accelerator grant as well.

So they're sort of dual enrolled, if you will, in both of those projects, and we'll be turning out some of those students here in the next two to three months.

- One of the things that I liked, there's two things that I read that were very interesting.

I liked the regional workforce partnership model because you can talk all day, that goes back to that collaboration piece.

But when you, when you put this together, and you were looking at this, how do you even start planning for something like this?

Because your staff is small.

- Right.

- But this is a heavy, heavy lift.

I guess it goes, I'm gonna answer for you somewhat, but I guess it goes to sometimes you have to put the brand, ICC, to the side for the better of the community, which you've done.

- Right.

Look, what I tell my folks is, if everybody's claiming it as their own.

So if the Economic Development Council is saying, "Hey, we just got a good jobs grant."

And if Bradley is saying, "Hey, we just got a good jobs grant."

Eureka is saying "We just got..." Then we've done our job, right?

Because you don't, you're not gonna have the impact.

We can't have the impact in individual silos anymore.

We've been doing that.

We've had amazing, right?

For decades.

Amazing organizations here, but we were all doing one piece.

If you're really gonna impact the community, we've gotta come together, right?

So one of the things we did in developing that Regional Workforce Alliance, if you can't have those types of conversations going on, you can't put together - Right.

- the type of partnership and alignment you need on a two month turnaround to write a $15 million grant, it's not gonna happen.

You have to build trust and you have to build an organization that brings people together to make that happen.

And we've got like I said, amazing organization.

So there are five key chambers who went out and helped us recruit businesses.

This is EDA.

So we contract Chris Setty organization to help write, Don write some of those reports, right?

- Right.

- And they have some ongoing reporting.

So you really have to pull that together.

And I guess part of it's just a leap of faith because if you pull people together, and you never can deliver on the grant, right?

Eventually they're gonna say that, that's a waste of their time.

So part of it was prioritization, part of it was determination, and a little bit of that's luck because I'm telling you they had, what was it, how many applications?

[Don] Over 500.

- Over 500.

And they funded 32.

- 32.

- [Matt] Wow.

- Right, so this is a big deal.

We were up against major state systems going after this grant.

So for Peoria to pull this off, and if you don't live in that grant world or that federal funding world, you may not know this, but this was a once in a generation coup, - It's hard.

for the Peoria area.

Yeah.

This is not an easy lift.

So very proud of the team.

- Man, that's awesome.

So I was just thinking, you're talking about collaboration.

You could also work with nonprofits, and I always kind of go to the nonprofit space.

- Yeah.

But I'll use Children's Home and the Boys and Girls Club as an example.

I I knew a young man, and he was always great with IT everything.

And he was like 14 or 15 years old, and one day he said, "Mr. George, can I show you something?"

And he took an mini iPad, and turned it into a projector, and could put movies onto the wall.

I was blown away.

And I said, I thought to myself, "First of all, how in the heck did he do that?"

He got into the guts of it, but I ha I hooked him up with Ken Flatter at CSE Software and I said, "You need to talk to this kid.

I mean this kid."

And here's the thing though, my point on this is, this young man over here would never have an opportunity.

- Yes.

- And I think the opportunity is what we're talking about here.

To be able to go into a program like this.

Now this is probably seven, eight years ago, and but right now if you took that same kid, - Absolutely.

- and gave them the opportunity, it could be the life-changing piece.

- So to systemically do that, I mean we didn't have a workforce organization six years ago, right?

We now have over 16 employees in that organization.

- [Matt] Awesome.

If we created a new manager position in community outreach and admissions.

'cuz you think about admissions from a higher ED standpoint, you're at your recruiting individual students.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- So we have an entire brochure, and over 18 programs now that we've gotten through grants that students can go to school for free, right?

Different qualifications.

They know some are for ex-offender.

- [Matt] Yeah.

And some are for people of poverty and some are, this one is a vertical, this one's IT, but you can get the education for free.

So we pulled that together, and just like you said, so now we're pulling together twice a year by community.

So Peoria, Pekin and East Peoria.

Pulling together the not-for-profits and saying, "We are going to tell you everything we've got going, not because you're trying to do, trying to make you do our jobs.

You're not trying to be our recruitment, but you come across people, who this could be game-changing for.

So we want you to have that information so you know where to send them so then we can help them as well.

As opposed to you every time you find that situation like you had trying to figure out how to connect someone or help them move forward.

So know what we have, we're gonna continue to update that, and we're gonna sit down and talk about those opportunities twice a year to make sure that when you have this opportunity, you know where to send people to have been taken care of.

- That's a good point.

So Don, I was just thinking, here would be an example.

So a lot of kids throughout the state, they're in a system and they are put in different cities all over the State of Illinois.

So let's say someone's in Galesburg as an example.

This grant, if this person over here, if this young lady over here understands that Bradley or Eureka, or Illinois Central College has this opportunity, you might be able to pull people from other regions to our area, and get them into the flow of workforce.

- Yeah and we're you know, we're already starting to hear some of those kinds of event requests, if you will.

We're trying to operate within the region.

- [Matt] Right.

And what's been determined from the you know, the five counties that are part of the economic development, and the in the EDA piece of this, and within the Community College District within Illinois Central College.

But again, you've got Bradley and Eureka.

You've got further outreach that are going on there.

The goal being to get people trained, and placed in jobs in the region.

- [Matt] In the region?

- Yeah.

So again, some of this outreach has resulted in these companies are saying you know, "You bring us the people that you're putting into the program.

For example, in in those startup jobs, if you will.

- Yeah.

- In those initial opportunities within these companies where they've got the basic IT training some of the land pieces, and they're getting certified within those areas.

They're gonna want to talk to them.

- Right.

They've already said they wanna start having conversations as early as they can because every company wants the unicorns that we're gonna be placing through these programs.

- And you know what, I just because of my past work, I always say kids 'cuz that's what I worked with.

But this is really, if you think about it, there's Goodwill and our good buddy Don Johnson.

- Yep.

- And veterans groups, and I mean this is, this is game-changing.

I mean, junior achievement can be a big piece.

- Right.

So we already have MOU with Goodwill, and with the Urban League and with Me Tech.

And so we have our five key organizations, and we'll continue to build that as we roll through.

Again, every individual of these not-for-profits.

Now it's not, the onus isn't on them, to go out and find big money and bring this home.

If we continue to do this regionally, then we pull in, it wouldn't make any sense for ICC to duplicate the amazing job these folks are doing.

- Right.

- It makes sense to do it together.

And so, and they're not a lot of organizations who can take on a you know, "Oh by the way, on the side we're gonna run another $15 million operation here for a couple of years, right?

So we're happy to be the convener, and pulling that together, right?

And then including everyone in their expertise as we move forward with the region.

- And I'm guessing too, the chambers are involved with this.

- [Sheila] Absolutely.

- They have to be, right?

- Chamber CEO Council.

- [Matt] CEO Council would be big in this.

And part of that too is what you've done in the past at ICC is just workforce development in general.

- [Sheila] Correct.

From truck certification to welding to the trades.

I mean, let's not forget we're talking about IT right now.

- [Sheila] Right.

But there's a lot of other tracks that you've helped kind of get going here in this community.

Let's not forget in you and others, and let's not forget about that.

- Together.

Together, so cool example.

- [Matt] Okay.

- A program starting in August.

So we've never had a construction program other than a quick trade skills.

- [Matt] Yes.

- Through the IDOT program.

And the issue was always, you know, the contractors who may hire non-union, and the unions who have their own apprenticeship program.

So everyone's stepping on everybody's toes.

So we got everybody together, us the contractors, the unions and it was absolutely amazing.

So he said, "Look.

We're gonna bring opportunity to everybody."

So if people go through our two year-program, right?

Then they can start.

Then we aligned all of the outcomes, and competencies.

So you can go through our program that starts in August and then start in the third year - Yeah.

- of a union apprenticeship.

Or you can go through that, and go to work for the contractors, and then they will be providing internships as we go through.

It's a win-win win for everybody.

And now we're, right?

All those positions, All the construction projects that are running behind, right?

'Cause they can't staff them.

Right?

We're gonna turn that around, and then you go down, you backfill that.

- [Matt] It trickles.

- It trickles.

And you go back to all those high schools who build the houses and whatever, and those kids just sort of, "Well, that was a fun project.

And they go do whatever.

Well, right.

And you pull those right into the streams.

So again, but it takes everybody working together- - It takes everybody.

- to figure that out.

- [Matt] Well, I just wanted to thank you for coming on.

This was very enlightening.

Don, you do great work.

Keep it up.

- Absolutely.

- [Matt] Dr. Sheila Quirk-Bailey, and Don Shafer, this is quite a project.

Thank you for coming on the show.

We're proud to have you in this awesome community.

I'm Matt George, and this is another episode of "Business Forward."

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Brought to you by PNC.

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