Meeting the Workforce Demands of Small Bio-Energy Businesses
Subcommittee on Contracting & Technology
House Committee on Small Business
US House of Representatives
Wednesday, June 10, 2007, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Room 2360, Rayburn House Office Building
Testimony of:
Dr. Patricia Keir, Chancellor, Eastern Iowa Community College District
Clinton Community College
Muscatine Community College
Scott Community College
306 West River Drive
Davenport, Iowa 52801-1221
(563) 336-3304
pkeir@eicc.edu
My name is Dr. Patricia Keir, and I am the Chancellor of Eastern Iowa Community College District, a district which includes Clinton, Muscatine, and Scott Community Colleges and incorporates small urban, suburban, and primarily rural communities. Since all three of our colleges sit on the Mississippi River, our district also participates in a number of bi-state economic and workforce development initiatives with Illinois – particularly in the Quad Cities area. I am honored to be here. In my brief remarks this morning, I would like to address the role that the nation's community colleges can play in preparing the workforce for the emerging and exciting bio-fuels and agriculture based products small business sector, and how our participation could be best led and structured.
Recent political events have made us more aware of America's vulnerability and growing dependence on foreign oil, and have increased public interest in developing bio-energy and other renewable, locally available energy resources.
Robert Lane, the chairman and chief executive officer of Deere & Co., recently said, “Not only does rural America have a role to play in feeding the nation and the world, but its health is also critical to ensuring a vibrant U.S. economy in the future. The challenges faced around the globe from increased global competition in food, fiber, and fuel markets require significant strategic investments in rural America's future.”
Providing liquid fuels and electric power from American farmlands is a win-win situation for rural economies, national energy security, and the environment. Rural America needs new economic development opportunities. At the same time, America faces the challenge of finding affordable, reliable, and clean energy needed for economic growth.
These bio-energy business opportunities are truly nationwide, but since I am from Iowa, my examples tend to be Iowan. According to the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, Iowa is the nation's number one ethanol-producing state, processing more than 400 million bushels of corn into 1.1 billion gallons of ethanol annually. David Swenson, an associate scientist in economics at Iowa State University, recently estimated that about 570 to 580 new ethanol jobs may be created in Iowa for people with associate's degrees in programs such as biofuels or biotechnology in the next three years.
Swenson said about 25 to 30 plants would likely come online in Iowa in the next three years, bringing the total number to more than 50, and employing about 55 to 60 people each. Of those jobs, Swenson said, about a third would be well-suited to people with associate's degrees in biotechnology. Another third, he said, would require at least a four-year degree in engineering or related fields, and another third would likely require experience — such as grain handling or truck driving — but not a particular degree. And again, these numbers represent just a piece of the projected bio-energy jobs to be filled in the state of Iowa. Similar bio-energy opportunities and therefore workforce preparation needs abound in almost every state.
How do we efficiently and effectively prepare a workforce to meet these needs? I would confidently recommend a leadership role for community colleges. There are more than 1200 community colleges distributed across the United States that educate 46% of all undergraduate students. Community colleges are often the only educational institutions and thus the primary source of workforce training for many rural areas and they all share the goals of access and equity with open admission policies and low tuition. No other segment of higher education is more responsive to its local community and workforce needs.
Given the explosion of interest in bio-energy, particularly in the Midwest, we need to rapidly develop and deploy education and training programs to meet the emerging needs of the many related small businesses popping up everywhere. In general, the types of jobs key to supporting the projected growth in the ethanol industry, for example, could be evenly divided into thirds: individuals needing short-term training, associate degreed technicians, and graduates with four year and advanced degrees.
Community colleges are the starting point for all of these levels of training, with their noncredit and short-term program options, their two year associate degree programs, and their mission to prepare students to transfer credits into four year colleges and universities.
Building awareness of the small business workforce opportunities in this new field is also essential. Clearly, the U.S. needs to gear up to create and prime the pipeline with up and coming agriculturally based technicians, scientists and engineers. But today's young people and re-entry adults are entering a buyer's market. There is no shortage of industries and types of small business vying for their attention and career choice. We must make career awareness of the new and emerging bio-energy field a priority in our nation's middle schools, particularly in rural areas. Research shows us that the middle school years are the best time to positively influence students and parents regarding the choice of career and the appropriate educational preparation to achieve it. Again, because community colleges, and in particular community colleges located in rural areas, are so tightly connected to their local K-12 systems and have stepped up to articulate a seamless transition for many students in high school into college level course work, we are well positioned to start to fill the pipeline to do four things: provide short term certificate training to upgrade the current workforce for these new jobs, provide – collaboratively – associates degrees and certificate programs to provide technicians for the new industries, and, just as important, to provide transfer students with the science, math, and engineering skill levels that will serve them well when they transfer to four year universities and to work closely with those universities to articulate the programs and motivate students to take the hard road to prepare for success in them.
There is no doubt currently that individual community colleges have already eagerly stepped up to individually develop programs to meet local needs. However, I want to make the point that a more systematic, collaborative approach would streamline the process, reducing duplication or an excess of training programs, making sure that everyone has access to the most up-to-date, thorough curriculum through collaborative systems, and acting in consort to be sure that we don't create an oversupply of technicians in certain areas and an insufficient number in others.
There is a model for optimum coordination and responsiveness to address the need for technicians, to increase the number students prepared and motivated to transfer into more advanced bio-energy fields at our universities, and to be sure that the curriculum taught is on target to meet the needs of ever-changing, expanding technical workforce fields. Through its Advanced Technology Education (ATE) program, the National Science Foundation has created an approach and a system through the nation's community colleges to educate technicians for all of the high-technology fields critical to our nation's economic future. Bio-energy should certainly be included. The ATE program fosters partnerships between academic institutions and employers to promote improvement in the education of science and engineering technicians at the undergraduate and secondary school levels. The ATE program also supports curriculum development and dispersal of that curriculum into community colleges and the K-12 sector, provides professional development of college faculty and secondary school teachers and formal connections to universities. And, perhaps most important, the ATE Centers of Excellence, situated at a lead community colleges throughout the nation, are resources to all community colleges and the communities they serve, maximizing the reach of the work and reducing duplication of effort.
At the Eastern Iowa Community College District, for example, we host a National Science Foundation Center of Excellence in the area of Energy and the Environment. Our ATE Center serves as a resource and clearinghouse for curricula and training materials, professional development of faculty, and program improvement strategies -- and the results of our work are shared with other community colleges throughout the nation and through them into their K-12 and business partners. “Re-inventing of the wheel” is minimized and a community college seeking to meet local training needs can quickly turn to us as a resource to implement needed programs in their local areas.
To me, America's rural landscape is an exciting place. Our farms are emerging as a primary source of materials to address our nation's energy and sustainability challenges. Research is showing us more and more interesting uses for biomass. Small businesses are popping up everywhere in response to this ongoing transformation. However, given the intellectual challenges of this new field, and the “depopulation” of many of our rural areas, we must commit to choosing a systematic, efficient, and forward-thinking system of bringing workers into the field and training them to meet the its demands -- at every level. I believe that our agricultural sector -- long known for “feeding the nation” -- will assume the role of “fueling the nation.” Small business will play a key role in making this transformation a reality. Located throughout the nation, accessible to all, closely tied to K-12 and universities, known to be responsive to local business and to move quickly to address emerging and projected workforce needs, community colleges should be regarded as a leader in the meeting the workforce demands of small bio-energy businesses.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to share my thinking with you.