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Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
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6

Wichita, Kansas

The final workshop of the series focused on Wichita, Kansas, and the surrounding Sedgwick County area, which has grown steadily since the 1960s and become increasingly diverse, with the nonwhite, non-Hispanic residents accounting for 31 percent of the population. The aviation industry is a major employer in the area, and Boeing’s trouble with its 737 MAX aircraft led to layoffs in the region even before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Wichita is unique among the five regions visited in this workshop series in that its economy is tightly connected to one specific sector that has been heavily affected by the pandemic. After reviewing the economic and workforce effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Wichita area, the workshop examined how the pandemic shifted Wichita’s labor and workforce efforts and strategies, and how the region’s higher education and other workforce training efforts responded to the unemployment crisis triggered by the pandemic.

UNDERSTANDING THE ECONOMIC AND WORKFORCE IMPACTS OF COVID-19 ON WICHITA

The workshop was introduced by Donna Ginther, the Roy A. Roberts distinguished professor of economics and director of the Institute for Policy and Social Research at the University of Kansas, and Karen Elzey, associate executive director of Workcred. Ginther said that the poverty rate in the city of Wichita is 14.2 percent, compared to 11.6 percent for the Wichita

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

metropolitan area. She noted that participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has increased by nearly 6 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic began. As was true for the other four cities in the workshop series, average wages in the city are lower than in the metropolitan area, at $32,360 and $34,027, respectively.

Ginther noted that Wichita city is more diverse than the metro area, with a higher percentage of the city’s population being Black or Hispanic (Figure 6-1). In the Wichita metro area, close to 31 percent of the population has a bachelor’s degree, which makes it one of the more highly educated regions in Kansas (Figure 6-2). Educational attainment in the city is somewhat lower, said Ginther, with fewer residents having at least some college experience.

Unemployment in the metro area spiked to 18.7 percent in April 2020, compared to 11.9 percent for the entire state, with almost 110,000 manufacturing employees filing initial claims as of October 10, 2020. They were joined by 48,000 retail trade employees, 34,000 people employed in other service sectors, 65,000 in hospitality and food services, and close to 50,000 in healthcare (Figure 6-3), five industries that accounted for 65 percent of the people filing initial unemployment claims in the state of Kansas between March and October 2020. At the time of the workshop, the city’s unemployment rate had dropped to approximately 5.5 percent, somewhat better than the metro area’s 6.4 percent unemployment rate, and the labor force participation rate had fallen by about 2.1 percent since March 2020. Women and Black individuals have fared worse (Figure 6-4). While women

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FIGURE 6-1 Demographics of the city of Wichita (left) and the Wichita metropolitan area (right).
SOURCE: Ginther slides 3 and 4.
Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×
Image
FIGURE 6-2 Educational attainment in the city of Wichita city (top) and the Wichita metropolitan area (bottom).
SOURCE: Ginther slides 5 and 6.

made up 47.5 percent of the workforce, they accounted for 50.7 percent of the claimants. Black individuals made up 5.1 percent of the workforce but accounted for 17.9 percent of the unemployed. Ginther noted that during the week of September 26, 2020, almost four times as many workers in Kansas were on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program as were receiving traditional unemployment benefits.

Ginther noted that the Paycheck Protection Program has been a bright spot for the regional economy. Kansas received some $5 billion in Paycheck

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×
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FIGURE 6-3 Unemployment claims for Kansas by industry.
SOURCE: Ginther slide 9.

Protection Program loans, and she estimated that 35 percent of the Kansas workforce benefited from this program. In Sedgwick County, 41 percent of the jobs are tied to this program’s loans. In Wichita, 19 percent of small businesses have closed since the start of the pandemic. Ginther pointed out that there are six times as many unemployed workers in the Wichita metropolitan area as there are jobs, and there are 10 times more unemployed workers than there are jobs requiring technical vocational skills.

One unique feature of Wichita is that a greater percentage of households in the city have a broadband internet subscription than in the larger metro area, although a smaller percentage of metro area residents have no internet subscription or access the internet solely through a cellular data plan. A slightly higher percentage of households in the city earning less than $20,000 per year have an internet connection than those in the larger metro area. One big difference can be seen in the percentage of households with no computing device, with 13.1 percent of the city’s households in that situation compared to 6.7 percent in the metro area.

According to data from the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, approximately 20 percent of the opportunity employment defined as jobs that do not require a bachelor’s degree but pay above regional median wages-in the Wichita area is at risk, with the most at-risk opportunity jobs being

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×
Image
FIGURE 6-4 Unemployment claims for Kansas by age and race.
SOURCE: Ginther slide 8.

secretary/administrative assistant, bookkeeper/accountant, first-line retail clerk supervisor, and carpenter. “There is significant risk to good-paying jobs in the Wichita metro area,” said Ginther. She also noted that high-paying jobs in the region (those paying more than $60,000 a year) have mostly recovered, down 2 percent through September 2020, compared to a decrease of 5 percent for middle-wage jobs (those paying between $27,000 and $60,000) and a decrease of 15 percent for low-wage jobs. This situation is similar to what is seen in the rest of the United States.

STATE AND LOCAL POLICY RESPONSES

The workshop’s first panel discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted Wichita’s labor and workforce development efforts and strategies. The three panelists were Amanda Duncan, vice president and chief business

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

development officer at the Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas, a one-stop resource for job seekers and employers; Scott Rigby, assistant city manager and director of development services for the city of Wichita; and Trent Armbrust, director of strategy for bioscience and technology at the Kansas Department of Commerce. Deb Miller, director of the Public Management Center at the University of Kansas, moderated the session.

Supporting the Predominant Regional Industry

The Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas, explained Duncan, serves as the local workforce development board for the six-county region surrounding Wichita. It operates the Wichita Workforce Center in the city as well as three auxiliary centers in surrounding counties and 10 additional access points. Given the importance of the aviation industry in the region, a wide range of organizations and educational institutions have come together to form the Air Capital Commitment to serve as a coordinated community response to keep and support this industry and its workers. This group has delivered wrap-around services and resources to support laid off and furloughed employees to retain the region’s highly skilled workforce, which state officials were worried would be poached by other states. It also lobbied the state to extend state unemployment benefits from 16 to 26 weeks, mainly to enable aviation workers to stay in Wichita, said Duncan. Duncan explained that, thanks to the Wichita Chamber of Commerce, Air Capital Commitment was able to transform itself into the Wichita Resource Center on COVID-19 to extend its assistance to other sectors of the regional economy.

The Workforce Alliance, said Duncan, also secured a $1.9 million Emergency Dislocated Worker grant from the Department of Labor, and the state applied for trade adjustment assistance certifications for business affected by dislocations in the aviation industry. These certifications have enabled Duncan’s organization to provide services to 26,000 individuals. The Greater Wichita Partnership, which the organization joined, is now running a retention campaign that promotes retraining as a means of retaining employees in the region.

Rigby’s main concern in his position with the city of Wichita is to help local companies upgrade and improve their business units so they can survive the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and thrive when the pandemic is over. For example, a company involved in aerospace manufacturing pivoted to produce ventilators, which enabled the company to

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

keep over 1,000 of its workers employed and generate an additional revenue stream. The state also helped companies, including some in Wichita, receive grants to manufacture personal protective equipment, which enabled them to expand their manufacturing capabilities and hire more people. He described how in the aerospace sector most companies have been manufacturers, but there may be opportunities for them regarding maintenance, repair, overhaul, and other aspects of aviation.

A Focus on Broadband Access and Increasing Digital Skills

Armbrust described Kansas’s new state economic development plan, enacted around the time the COVID-19 pandemic hit. That plan had focused on developing talent for advanced manufacturing as a key pillar, but when the pandemic struck, it became clear that broadband internet access for the small aviation supply chain businesses in the region was a real issue. As a result, ensuring that the state’s companies had access to broadband internet and understood how to take advantage of a high-speed connection to improve their businesses became a second key pillar of the state’s economic development plan. The state committed $50 million for building broadband infrastructure and another $10 million to help companies and individuals access the internet.

Armbrust commented that Kansas has also allocated funds to enable its technical and community colleges to purchase the equipment they need to train their students and upskill employees on the latest digital technologies, including cyber security. The state has established a program that will quickly train hundreds of people to obtain a certificate in information technology, cyber security, and information technology project management, all jobs in high demand in Kansas. The state has also been successful leveraging its investment in broadband access and training for information technology–related jobs to bring some aerospace supply chain companies that had moved overseas back to the region. In addition, he said the state has included a 10 percent boost on its working capital grants for those business that are owned by women and people of color.

Discussion

Regarding programs started during the COVID-19 pandemic that might end up continuing once the pandemic ends, Rigby said that one program likely to survive enables restaurants to apply online for permission

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

to expand their operations outdoors and receive an answer within 48 hours, rather than the weeks or months it took prior to the pandemic. He noted that the city has also looked at accelerating other application processes and reducing red tape now that it has seen that it can in fact do so when pressed. Working with the county, there is now a small business grant of $5,000 available to help companies pivot quickly when the situation demands they do so to survive.

Duncan said her organization has integrated more thoroughly with the Kansas Department of Commerce, something that will continue. It also worked with the Greater Wichita Partnership to establish a program for advertising the availability of public sector jobs, something that public agencies themselves are prohibited from doing. The Workforce Alliance will also continue its new efforts in retraining employees for information technology, automation, and healthcare jobs that includes an aggressive outreach effort to recruit people into those jobs.

One thing the state has learned through the partnerships it has built during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Armbrust, is the urgency of repositioning the state’s workforce to take advantage of new jobs in automation and information technologies. As a result, the state is going to be “laser focused” on developing digital skills in its workforce so that it can remain competitive on a national and global scale. Rigby noted the newfound awareness among leaders in Wichita and the surrounding area that it should accelerate efforts to diversify the economy so that it does not rely so heavily on aerospace manufacturing or even healthcare. He also pointed to the city changing its incentive guidelines to focus more on small and mid-sized businesses and enable them to grow.

When asked whether producing personal protective equipment will become an ongoing industry in Kansas or if that will be a short-term occurrence, Armbrust replied that he believes some of the companies making this equipment will continue to do so going forward, and thanks to money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, they have been able to invest in technology that makes them competitive with foreign manufacturers. One company, for example, used CARES Act funds to make robots that help make personal protective equipment, and that firm will be able to use the technology it developed to make equipment for the pharmaceutical industry and others.

Rigby noted that the speed with which the pandemic has forced the city to work will benefit the city and its residents for years to come. His hope, though, is that the changes in the work environment that the pandemic has

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

triggered will lead to companies thinking differently about where to locate their operations; for example, the cost of living is much lower in Wichita than New York or Boston. Duncan seconded that idea and added that she wants local employers, when the region emerges from the pandemic, to feel they were supported and encouraged to grow and create job opportunities for young Kansans who might then stay in the state instead of migrating to the coasts for jobs. Armbrust sees the state’s renewable energy portfolio expanding and foresees being able to recruit talent because of the sustainability efforts that companies are making. And he hopes that the state will not wait 24 years between efforts to develop an economic development plan, which was the length of time since the state first developed such a plan.

RESPONSE OF WICHITA’S HIGHER EDUCATION WORKFORCE TRAINING EFFORTS TO THE COVID-19 CRISIS

The workshop’s second session highlighted changes in higher education workforce development programs in the Wichita region that were triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The four panelists were Susan Norton, director of adult learning at Wichita State University; Kimberly Moore, director for workforce, professional, and community education at Wichita State University; Christopher Stanyer, vice president of career services at Goodwill Industries of Kansas; and Deltha Colvin, associate vice president for special programs in the Office of Regional Engagement and Economic Development at Wichita State University. Karen Elzey, associate executive director of Workcred, moderated the session.

Wichita State, explained Norton, had 10 days to move from a normal classroom setting to totally online, and fortunately the university had enough of a technology infrastructure to make it happen. That did not mean the transition was easy, given that there was a significant learning curve to deliver course material via Zoom. Staff from the university’s media resource center and instructional design team were incredibly helpful in that regard.

Moore, who oversees the university’s Badges program, said there was no transition for her project because its educational programs focused on workforce skills and competencies were already exclusively online. The Badges program, launched in 2015, had 954 individuals enrolled in 2019—mostly non-degree-bound working professionals—and offered 83 different badges that are defined as an academic course worth one undergraduate or graduate credit or less. The self-contained, ready-to-go courses that individuals can

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

take to upskill or re-skill from the comfort of their own homes are graded on a pass-fail basis, and students can sign up for a course at any time.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the “badge” topics were faculty-driven, but since the pandemic began, Moore and her colleagues have focused on building business and industry partners that will drive curriculum development and instructions. One partnership with direct support professionals, for example, provides home-based technology services for older individuals. Another partnership, said Moore, is with regional nonprofit organizations that employ and provide services and educational opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A similar partnership with the National Association for the Dually Diagnosed focuses on individuals who already have degrees and are upskilling to work with those who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Moore reported that the team is also working with Working Men of Christ Ministries to provide and develop badges that individuals recently released from prison can use to get the competencies they need to find a well-paying job in the community. Another program, developed with the help of the National Association of Credit Managers, aims to provide additional training for finance graduates as a means of getting more young people into that profession before the large tranche of 50-plus-year-old credit managers retires over the next decade or so.

Stanyer described some of Goodwill’s programs designed to help individuals overcome barriers to employment. The NextStep Alliance, Goodwill’s adult education program, is a partnership with Wichita State. Its Learn IT Lab, funded by a three-year grant from Google, can provide digital skills to all Kansans throughout the state using a recreational vehicle as a mobile classroom complete with computers and internet access. The third program, NextStep Unlocked, provides high school credit for completing technical college courses and is intended to help people released from the criminal justice system rebuild their lives.

When the pandemic hit, Goodwill made use of its online programs, but Stanyer and his colleagues are having to work hard to have a one-on-one connection with the students, most of whom come from a high-need demographic with few resources. Strayer reported that by using CARES Act funds, Goodwill has been able to set up a computer laptop loan program. However, the Learn IT Lab was grounded because nobody wanted to be inside an enclosed classroom, and it is only now relaunching as an onsite training program conducted at an employer’s location at no cost to the employer.

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

Colvin explained that all of the programs supported by Wichita State University’s Office of Regional Engagement and Economic Development are funded through nationally competitive grants. Several of these programs encountered significant difficulties once the pandemic hit, particularly those that required students to learn communication programs such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams and to have a computer. In addition, some programs needed to provide new forms of support for students, such as providing meals.

Discussion

To help individuals who did not have reliable internet access, Goodwill was able to buy 250 computers and set up a computer loaning program. This, however, did not solve the access problem, because the price of connecting program participants on cellular data plans would have been astronomical. Stanyer is hoping that the state will pass upcoming legislation that would provide funds for extending broadband access into lower socioeconomic status neighborhoods. Colvin said the Department of Education has allowed her program to buy computers and internet hubs to provide access to students that would otherwise be unable to participate. The bottom line, she said, is that if the students in her program do not have internet access, they cannot learn.

Norton, responding to a question about the types of supports available to help instructors better understand the technologies they use to teach online, said that Wichita State University was fortunate to have an instructional design group that can help faculty with their online issues.

In terms of working with the Badge program to align with the needs of employers as the economy changes in Wichita, Moore said that she and her colleagues are engaging with human resource managers, hiring managers, and executives and directors at a variety of local employers to determine what jobs are open and what skills are lacking in the local workforce. One thing she has been hearing is that job applicants, and even some of her program’s graduates, are lacking soft skills, so her group is now developing badges in the area of time management, communication skills, teamwork, and the ability to work in a digital environment. Moore has also been working with national associations that have their finger on the pulse of future job projections so that her program can stay abreast of the needs of a changing economy.

Norton said she has been hearing similar things about adult education, particularly the need for digital skills and digital literacy. She noted that

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

there is a strong partnership among the programs run by everyone on the panel: “We are trying to use these relationships and programs to make it easier for people to increase their skill sets and increase their job opportunities and find a path to where they want to be.”

Responding to a question about how the partnership between Google and Goodwill came about, Stanyer said that Google approached Goodwill International in 2017 looking for ways to invest in digital literacy across the country as a means of preparing people for the modern workforce. He noted that when the three-year grant from Google ends in December 2020, Goodwill will renew it because it has become an important component of workforce training, and it will be needed to supply workers with digital skills for Amazon’s new facility in Wichita.

At the conclusion of the session the panelists were asked to list one action needed to assist them in their roles in helping meet the demand for the science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine workforce. For Norton, a significant challenge is keeping up with how fast the job market is changing and what employers need from their students regarding skills, particularly during the pandemic when face-to-face meetings are not happening. Colvin said she would like to have a cadre of volunteers who would be willing to serve as role models for her students and provide one-on-one help becoming computer literate and learning new digital skills. Moore said that communication and partnerships with local employers is key to identifying the specific skills and competencies they desire in their current and future employees. Stanyer also wanted synergies through partnerships to help boost adult education in Kansas, particularly given that budgets will be tight for some time because of the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

RESPONSE OF WICHITA’S WORKFORCE TRAINING INFRASTRUCTURE TO THE COVID-19 CRISIS

The workshop’s final panel discussed post-COVID-19 policy responses and investments in workforce training programs, including the effect of the pandemic on workforce alignment and learner access. The panelists were Michele Gifford, human resources director for operations and workforce programs at Textron Aviation; Amy Williams, senior manager for global community relations and corporate administration at Spirit AeroSystems; and Cheryl Childers, human resource manager at Cox Machine. Lida Beninson, senior program officer at the National Academies, moderated the session.

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

Gifford explained that Textron Aviation is the largest general aviation and business jet manufacturer in the world, with skill sets in its employee base including accountants to welders and everything in between, including highly educated engineers to true craftspeople on the shop floor. Williams said that Spirit AeroSystems is a tier one manufacturer and supplier to Boeing and Airbus, as well as to defense manufacturers. As with Textron Aviation, Spirit AeroSystems has a workforce spanning highly trained craftspeople on the shop floor to highly educated engineers, plus the sales and administrative staff. Childers explained that Cox Machine, a family-owned company, is a supplier to the Textrons and Spirits of the world, as well as companies involved in the space industry, and, like them, it employs a wide range of skilled and educated workers.

Discussion

Williams commented that for the five years she has been at Spirit, the company was going “like gangbusters,” as was the rest of the aviation sector in Wichita. The result was the development of partnerships throughout the region to grow talent and encourage professionals to move to Wichita. Then the local aviation industry took back-to-back hits, with Boeing’s 737 MAX troubles and the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge became one of retaining the workforce, so the company let its employees do volunteer work in the community to make sure they were getting to do something meaningful. But that could only go on for so long, prompting the company to start thinking about diversification.

Then, out of the blue, Spirit AeroSystems was given the opportunity to make ventilators, and the company deployed close to 700 employees to that new project. The point, she said, is that organizations, no matter how long they have existed and no matter what they have been doing, should be open to new opportunities and be ready to seize them based on the internal skills, strengths, and competencies.

Childers said Cox Machine has been concentrating on training for the past three to five years to fill the huge skills gap in Wichita. Her company developed partnerships with Duncan and her team at the Workforce Alliance, as well as with Wichita State and the university’s applied sciences and technology community college campus (Wichita State University Tech), to build the local workforce so that the company would not have to leave the Wichita region. In fact, she said, many of the local manufacturers, including Textron and Spirit, worked together on the challenge of developing the local workforce.

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

She noted that, as a smaller company, its training efforts needed to be broader in scope, and over the past six to nine months, the company’s training efforts have increased so that once the economy turns around, it will have the workforce ready to take advantage of new opportunities. Some of the funds to support this effort came from the Paycheck Protection Program, and some came from the company’s reallocation of funds to emphasize training.

Gifford said that three years ago, the company began investing heavily in the region’s high school students to get ahead of the retirement bubble that will hit in the next five to seven years. Her company is also working on developing apprenticeship programs with Wichita State University Tech, and it has a summer externship program that brings college and career counselors and career and technical education teachers into its aviation factories so they can sell their students on a career in the aerospace industry. She noted, though, that the pandemic forced Textron to put its summer internships for high school students and its externship programs on hold, since it was not feasible or practical to bring people into the factories. Assuming some sense of normalcy has returned by summer 2021, the company plans to restart those programs. In the meantime, it has established virtual shadowing opportunities for local high school students as an approach to keeping students excited about a possible career in the aerospace industry.

Williams commented on the critical role of partnerships throughout the community in supporting the mass of employees who have been affected by the Boeing MAX 737 troubles and then the COVID-19 pandemic. Childers also commended all of the community partners that have come together to help the region’s employees who have been hit hard by the devastating effects of the pandemic on the airline industry, and hence, on aerospace manufacturers. She also noted how important civic pride has been throughout the pandemic. This attitude has manifested itself in the way that companies that normally compete have banded together to help keep the region’s workforce intact for when the aviation industry rebounds. The only way that happens, she continued, is to have strong relationships built throughout the community, and she implored those attending the workshop who might live elsewhere to start building those relationships now. “Contact United Way, contact your workforce alliances, contact your local schools and trade schools,” Childers said. “Get those relationships going, because when things go south, you are going to have to rely on those people, and you are going to have to help each other out.”

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

When asked what recommendations she would make to her company’s partners or to local, state, and federal officials that would help support its workers, Williams first noted that the Wichita Promise program pays for living expenses while workers are taking classes and has been successful at helping workers get the retraining they need to either move into a new job or be prepared to move up in their old job once the aerospace economy starts recovering. She would like to see more support for this type of program and a more concerted effort to promote this type of opportunity, not just in Wichita or Kansas, but across the nation.

Childers said she wants to see funding restored so that schools can once again offer shop and automotive classes and start students down a path toward the skilled trades that offer well-paying jobs. She noted that because schools have had to cut these programs, local firms are having a hard time finding people right out of high school to fill middle-skill jobs without first having them go to community college. Gifford seconded Williams’s and Childers’s recommendations and added that she would like to see reduced barriers to offering work-based learning credits for high school students. She also recommended steps that might make it easier for smaller businesses to offer apprenticeships.

CLOSING REMARKS

To conclude the workshop, Beninson summarized some of the common themes discussed throughout the day. Wichita, she began, has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic and the Boeing MAX 737 grounding, which has been devastating for a large swath of Wichita’s workforce, and the companies in the region have taken this “opportunity” to think about how they could expand, diversify, or pivot. This, she noted, would not have happened when the local economy was booming and companies were working at full capacity to meet customer demand. However, expanding, diversifying, or pivoting to new product lines requires new skills among the local workforce, and local educational and workforce training programs have responded with numerous programs to provide that training, often in partnership with local companies.

Access to reliable broadband internet is a critical resource, and the Wichita area has many gaps in broadband access that it is trying to address. At the same time, the community has recognized that there are some people who need not only internet access but also training in how to operate in the digital environment, and Wichita is developing programs to address that

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×

need. In addition to addressing the digital skills gap, local programs are also coming online to provide training on “soft skills” such as teamwork, time management, and communication that local companies have said are lacking in some new employees. Beninson noted how hard Wichita is working to keep its skilled workers and keep them engaged in the community. Public-private partnerships have been key to this effort, as has local civic pride around Wichita and the quality of life it can offer.

Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×
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Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×
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Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×
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Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×
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Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
×
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Suggested Citation:"6 Wichita, Kansas." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Meeting Regional STEMM Workforce Needs in the Wake of COVID-19: Proceedings of a Virtual Workshop Series. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26049.
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The COVID-19 pandemic is transforming the global economy and significantly shifting workforce demand, requiring quick, adaptive responses. The pandemic has revealed the vulnerabilities of many organizations and regional economies, and it has accelerated trends that could lead to significant improvements in productivity, performance, and resilience, which will enable organizations and regions to thrive in the "next normal." To explore how communities around the United States are addressing workforce issues laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic and how they are taking advantage of local opportunities to expand their science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) workforces to position them for success going forward, the Board of Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a series of workshops to identify immediate and near-term regional STEMM workforce needs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The workshop planning committee identified five U.S. cities and their associated metropolitan areas - Birmingham, Alabama; Boston, Massachusetts; Richmond, Virginia; Riverside, California; and Wichita, Kansas - to host workshops highlighting promising practices that communities can use to respond urgently and appropriately to their STEMM workforce needs. A sixth workshop discussed how the lessons learned during the five region-focused workshops could be applied in other communities to meet STEMM workforce needs.

This proceedings of a virtual workshop series summarizes the presentations and discussions from the six public workshops that made up the virtual workshop series and highlights the key points raised during the presentations, moderated panel discussions and deliberations, and open discussions among the workshop participants.

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