Ingram's November 2022

Success in Spades | Panasonic Energy executives joined state and local dignitaries, including Gov. Laura Kelly and Commerce Secretary David Toland, to mark the moment.

those in the advanced manuf ac t - uring realm already exist. What we will do is customize that training to

“The concern is volume and how we get 4,000 people ready for these jobs over the course of the next two to three years,” Schneider says. She’s confident Panasonic will be an engaged civic partner, one that helps demonstrate the value proposition of relatively higher pay, straight out of high school or community college, with minimal long term college debt. The issue now, she notes, is that ticking clock. “If we’re not filling the pipeline soon, we’ll never reach the 4,000-job level,” Schneider says. “Young people right now don’t understand man ufacturing; they don’t know what it means. When they see the environment, see the robotics, understand that a lot of it is high-tech and clean, then they have a very different image of it in their minds.” And therein, she says, is yet another example of how this development deal may truly prove transformational. High school administrators have long prided themselves on the number of students that go immediately to four-year colleges. Some, like their counseling staff, are actually rewarded financially for hitting college-placement targets. That kind of thinking, Schneider says, echoing an argument construction exec utives have made for a decade, “has to go away. We have to be as proud of the achievements of students moving directly into the workforce with great jobs and great skills as we are of students going off to college. We’re not at that point yet. I think the boat is turning, but slowly.” Few things will accelerate the pace of that change like, cold, hard cash. At Gigafactory 1 outside of Reno, for example, the local community college has expanded its instructional space and added new instructional programs. Six years after its opening, that Panasonic plant still has an immediate need for 400 jobs paying up to $32 an hour, the company has said—a powerful draw for students in its manufacturing programs. Based on a 40-hour work week, that annual $66,000 is a full $10,000 higher than the median household income in the Kansas City region. Transformative? Indeed.

fit Panasonic’s needs,” something JCCC already has ex perience with in working with other businesses in the

region to deliver special skill sets. “That training, contract or cust omized, specifically fits the needs of that employer,” she says. “So instead of students with general backgrounds, you end up with those who have the general skills and the knowledge of that employer’s specific needs.” Before that can begin, though, a fair number of conversations must take place with Panasonic’s leadership. “We are still, as a caveat, waiting to hear more details from Panasonic about the exact number of these positions they need, and what does that look like in terms of workforce development,” says Keely Schneider, executive director of the non-profit Workforce Partnership in Kansas. “Does Panasonic require the same skill sets for X-number of positions as we think? It’s really the kind of nitty gritty detail we have to talk about, and

opment activity will continue to build and the training will continue to elevate the broader workforce—again, bringing more jobs with high-paying, sustainable wages.” Waldman is part of a consortium of education officials who have already jumped into the challenge: devising a coherent regional approach to training workers with skills specific to Pana sonic’s needs. A ticking clock amplifies that chore: If the battery plant is to begin production in 2025, the workers will need their certification, in many cases, by the end of 2024—and 2023 kicks off just eight weeks after the groundbreaking. That gives K-12 programs, commun ity colleges, and four-year institutions a tight window to implement academic programming, recruit students, and put

“Once Kansas shows that it can support Panasonic, supplier companies will be attracted, but other major manufacturers will start to take note.” — ELISA WALDMAN, WORK-FORCE TRAINING DIRECTOR, JOHNSON COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

them through their paces. Some of that instruction is baked into the cake with current manufacturing-related training, Waldkman noted, but some key addit ions must add the icing for Panasonic. “We don’t currently train people in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batter ies,” she says. “We have wonderful trades programs with college credit or cert ifications in industrial maintenance, auto, HVAC, plumbing, electrical—all

that has not yet happened.” There is, she says, that collaborative effort by which her team, area colleges, and K-12 districts are ready to pounce. By happy coincidence, her organization has been working with the DeSoto schools on just such programming to promote student interest in trades’ car-eers. The participation of one dis- trict, though, only hints at what will be needed.

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November 2022

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