Centralina WDB Executive Director Participates in National Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Webinar on Preparing Strategic Boards for the New Implementation

   

The STP Ventures, LLC was formed in 2009 with the initial goal of providing superior IT services to businesses at an affordable price. Although the company has experienced steady growth since its launch and has built relationships with more sophisticated clients, the largest challenge was budgeting for the training needed to increase client base revenues.

 

In order to meet customer demands and be more market responsive the company applied to the Centralina Workforce Development Board (Centralina WDB) for training assistance through the NCWorks Incumbent Worker Training Grant program.

 

The company sought to upgrade the technical skills for two of their employees with the idea that gaining the appropriate internationally recognized certifications would not only equip them with the necessary technical skills but would also allow the company to market their services to potential clients.

 

"The training allowed us to increase our employee knowledge which in turn increased comfort and confidence working with larger business," said Patrick Wright, Managing Partner of STP Ventures, LLC. "Since the training we have expanded into a new vertical targeting larger companies than our client base prior to the training."

 

The company was awarded grant funds for training two employees in five components of CISCO Network Devices as well as how to troubleshoot and maintain Cisco IP networks. Today, STP Ventures has been able to leverage additional capability into a new line of service. The company recently landed the largest contract in the history of the company and is excited about the potential to gain additional business.

 

Considering the constant change in the computer technology field, the company wanted to fill the skills gap in order to remain competitive in the industry.   Now they are able to offer clients the most up to date service because of the partnership with the Centralina WDB. The next steps for the company is to market the new capabilities gained through the NCWorks Incumbent Worker Training Grant and grow their revenue stream by being a more diversified company.

 

"We were very pleased with the assistance from the Centralina WDB in educating us on what was available," Wright said. "We appreciated in-person meetings and availability of staff which many other programs did not offer this."

 

Pat Kahle

The Centralina Workforce Development Board is pleased to recognize Pat Kahle, President of the Union County Chamber of Commerce who was recently named among the Charlotte region's 50 Most Influential Women of 2015 by the Mecklenburg Times.    Kahle and the Union County Chamber of Commerce has partnered with the Centralina Workforce Development Board for many years. The recognition was created to recognize women who played a vital role in the economy and society around the Charlotte region.

Kahle was named President of the Union County Chamber of Commerce in September of 2013. She has over 25 years of experience in financial services which includes her last banking position as a Senior Vice President and Director of Retail Operations for Park Sterling Bank. Kahle also has 10 years of experience as an entrepreneur in the retail business with multiple locations around the Charlotte region. Since Kahle's arrival, the Union County Chamber of Commerce has grown and attendance in events has also increased drastically. New programs has been introduced and existing programs such as Women in Business and Shop Union County has strengthen.

 

"This recognition is humbling and certainly an honor," Kahle said. "I am proud of what has been accomplished during my time at the Chamber and equally proud to serve our community as a volunteer."

 

Kahle has volunteered for many local non-profits including United Way, Union County Education Foundation, Union County Community Health Services, and a host of others.

 

The Centralina Workforce Development Board is proud to partner with the Union County Chamber of Commerce. The Board is pleased with Kahle's major achievement.  Please continue to look to the Centralina WDB's monthly e-newsletter for more exciting news around the Centralina region.

Frances Thornton, Resource Specialist at the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan, working one-on-one with a customer at the Center in Salisbury.

   

"We care about customers, we recognize that what we do is very important to people's lives," said Debbie Davis, Center Leader for the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan. "I think that effects the atmosphere of how people are treated when they come in here because every staff member sincerely cares about what we are doing."

 

When Davis made this statement in a recent interview, one could witness the heart felt sincerity and the deep compassion as she spoke. Immediately when customers and employers enter the doors at the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan, it's almost guaranteed they're treated with the upmost respect from every employee at the Center.

 

"I like what I do because I love helping people," said Tony Fleming, Disable Veteran's Outreach Program Specialist (DVOP), for the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan. "I had a grandmother who taught me to always treat people the way you want to be treated and I understood that because I was unemployed once upon a time."

 

This statement not only applies for Fleming but most of the staff at the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan. Since majority of the staff has faced unemployment challenges once before, they understand the importance of finding lifelong careers to help better the lives of individuals. Everyone at the Center appreciates what they do and views their job as a platform to help people change their lives and make a difference for themselves and their entire family.

 

Davis said while taking a class at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College a few years ago, she remembered a young lady who was leading the class approaching her during a break. The lady said she was a job seeker at the Center many years ago. Davis couldn't remember the young lady but the individual proceeded to say, Davis was the first person to ever ask what she wanted to do with her life. As a result the young lady was able to go to school and now has a job at the community college doing what she loves.

 

"The lady said I changed her life," Davis said. "It's those types of things I live for. When I'm able to help somebody it's so great."

 

Davis has worked in this line of work for approximately 32 years. She worked at the NCWorks Career Center-Cabarrus for about seven years and later worked for the Department of Social Services with a focus on job programs. After doing the program for a few years, she returned to workforce services and gained employment at the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan doing unemployment claims, workshops, training programs, and employment counseling. Before becoming a Center Leader, she was a supervisor and assistant manager.

 

The Center offers many programs and workshops for job seekers and community partners. The Center keeps up with a community assistant resource guide to inform individuals of the community resources outside the Career Center. Many of the resources are partners with the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan. Places such as Rowan Helping Ministries, the Community Care Clinic, Goodwill Career Connections, the VA hospital, the Salisbury-Rowan Community Action Agency (SRCAA), Vocational Rehabilitation, and much more. The Center also has former offender services and often times, a specialist visits the prisons and holds workshops there as well.

 

Other partners consist of the Department of Social Services and Rowan-Cabarrus Community College. General partners in the community consist of the Rowan Public Library, United Way, and the Housing Authority. The Center has 12 full-time employees, a title V worker, and a few part-time employees who host workshops weekly.

 

"It takes a village and that's the foundation we try to build here," Fleming said while describing the staff's work ethic. Our job is to meet people where they are even if it's finding them under a bridge or a railroad. If we can change their life together that's the key."

 

Overall, no matter what it takes, the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan does whatever it takes to change the lives of all individuals.

 

"I think we provide good customer service because we care for people and we care about serving them," Davis said. "We are here to serve them and I think that effects everyone here. We work hard to help people have hope and that's what it's all about."

  

	NAME: AMY WEATHERMAN   OCCUPATION: Talent Development Consultant Supervisor at the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan

 

How long have you been working at the NCWorks Career Center and how did you start in the industry?

I've been working with the Centralina Workforce Centers for a little over 2 years. I've been working out of the NCWorks Career Center-Rowan since April 2014. My first "professional" position was actually in Workforce Development. After I graduated college, I secured a role as an intermittent Employment Consultant at what is now the NCWorks Career Center-Cabarrus. My position was eliminated and then I received an employment opportunity with the NCWorks Career Centers. I feel so fortunate.

 

What do you like most about your job?

There is nothing more rewarding than helping someone see their goals become a reality-whether through training first or direct employment. I will never forget the first time I knew I helped someone get a job. He introduced me to his entire family. I didn't just help one customer, I helped his family by assisting him in finding full time employment. Whether it be directly or indirectly, assisting our customers in finding the job is very rewarding.

 

How do you want to inspire or help our daily customers?

I want to inspire and help our daily customers in securing employment and community resources. Whether it be through career assessments to find the right job, assisting with a resume, supporting someone through a training option, providing services and supporting the staff that provides those services is extremely important. The work we do changes lives and communities.

 

Why should customers trust you to help them?

Customers should trust me to help them because I have a real passion for what I do. I never stop looking for answers or ways to help our customers. I'm a huge advocate for what we provide to internal and external customers. Everyone needs support and I try to be that for everyone I interact with.

NAME: TONY FLEMING   OCCUPATION: Disable Veteran's Outreach Program Specialist (DVOP) at NCWorks Career Center-Rowan

How long have you been working at the NCWorks Career Center and how did you start in the industry?

Officially I have been here ten years and I did about three years part-time. When I first started part-time I was a part of a core services crew. We were the people who helped individuals who came in by looking for job opportunities. My first year in a half, I was at the front desk doing those kinds of things. While working part-time, two positions came open for Veterans Services. One open up in Greensboro and one opened up in Winston-Salem. I worked in Greensboro for a while but later moved back here in 2003.

 

What do you like most about your job?

I like what I do because I love helping people. I empathize and I understand what it's like to be on the other side. Since I live here, there's always a possibility that I may see that person in the grocery store and I want that person to be able to say, he really helped me out or he at least did his best. I would want someone to do that for me as well.

 

How do you want to inspire or help our daily customers?

People once told me that I wasn't going to mount to anything and that motivated me to make something out of myself. If I can touch one person's life by sharing my personal testimonial with them that's a blessing. I want people to know, if I can make it you can too!

 

Why should people trust you to help them?

The fact that I'm honestly trying to help them. It's not a game to me. I want to help. I want them to be better for their family, community, and nation as a whole. I treat people the way they should be treated, and if more people start doing this, it'll make the world a better place.

When Jaquana Bailey, enrolled in the Centralina Workforce Development Board-funded WIA Youth program, (now WIOA NEXGEN) in 2014 through the Resource Development Center (RDC) in Stanly County, she was a single mother of a four year old son. Having her first child at the age of 15, she depended on others for childcare, transportation, and housing assistance but yearned to find her own way to self-sufficiency. She was determined to find stability for her son and understood she had to be the one to provide it.  

 

Over the course of the year, Bailey was very active and attended numerous workshops and activities offered at RDC. Workshops included sessions on professional attire, phone manner, company dinner etiquette, communications skills, job search and resume assistance. From the start, Bailey knew what she wanted to do and had a time-frame in mind. She identified nursing as a potential career path but didn't know how to begin her journey. Having worked in a manufacturing environment and Walmart prior to enrolling in the program, she realized additional training and skills was necessary for the nursing field. After connecting with RDC she was pointed in the right direction and began to make great strides towards her goal. Bailey sought the help of the WIA program in paying for all nursing certification courses at Stanly Community College.

 

In July of 2014, Bailey completed Nurse Aide I and later passed the state exam on August 12, 2014. By the end of 2014, Bailey enrolled and passed Medication Aide and Nurse Aide II courses. While taking classes and raising a child, Bailey managed to find employment as a Nurse Aide I employee at Trinity Place, an assisted living center in Albemarle, NC. Although Bailey had a heavy schedule, she also had a part-time job with a group home for the autistic as a care giver on the weekends.  

  

Today, Bailey is still employed at Trinity Place and has since found her own transportation and apartment for herself and young son. Moving forward, Bailey plans to go back to school this fall and enroll in the two-year nursing program at Stanly Community College. Despite everything she had to endured, Bailey has proven to be a true success story not only for herself but also the entire WIOA NEXGEN program. 

 

The Centralina Workforce Development Board and the Centralina Youth Council are proud of all of the WIOA NEXGEN participants. For more information regarding the WIOA Nex Gen Youth program, contact Centralina Workforce Development Board's Youth Specialist, Solomon McAuley at smcauley@centralina.org.           

 

 

Quadarrius Roseboro was referred to the Centralina Workforce Development Board-funded WIOA NEXGEN services (formerly known as WIA Youth Services), at Iredell Community Action Research and Evaluation, Inc., (I-CARE) through the NCWorks Career Center-Iredell (Statesville) in June of 2014.

 

Roseboro was only a high school graduate. After learning he would be a father, he began seeking employment immediately. Due to his lack of experience, his efforts were unsuccessful but he quickly established goals to improve and discover skills that would help him gain employment with the help of I-CARE staff. Over the course of the year, Roseboro participated in several activities to improve his chances of gaining employment including monthly Soft Skills workshops, CRC-Silver and weekly work readiness activities such as job search, interviewing, appearance, and workplace ethics workshops.

 

Roseboro began to see major results when the staff at I-CARE directed him to register and complete a profile with Centralina's Career Headlight tool. Centralina Career Headlight featured an assessment tool which provided detailed information on his career and skill interest in order to pursue employment opportunities. The information he received was significant in helping him narrow his job search.   The former WIA Youth Work Experience equipped him with employable skills, such as stocking, receiving, inventory control, customer service, and workplace safety.

 

In January 2015, Roseboro gained employment with MegaForce-Plaxiflex as a machine loader in Statesville, NC. As of May 2015, he is now happily employed at the JC Penny's Warehouse as an Order Pick-up Packager also in Statesville.

 

The Centralina Workforce Development Board and the Centralina Youth Council are proud partners with Iredell Community Action Research and Evaluation, Inc. The Board and Council are extremely pleased with Roseboro's recent success through the Centralina Career Headlight tool. For more information regarding the WIOA NEXGEN services, contact Centralina Workforce Development Board's Youth Specialist, Solomon McAuley at smcauley@centralina.org.      

 

Ameritech Die and Mold, partners with the Centralina Workforce Development Board, hosted U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and Iredell County's two House Congressional members, Robert Pittenger and Virginia Foxx, at their facility in Mooresville earlier this month. The U.S. Labor Secretary and the two House Congressional members all praised Ameritech's apprenticeship program.  

 

Ameritech, is a manufacturing company who's a part of a group of now seven companies in the region that participates in Apprenticeship 2000. Typically all of the apprenticeships are designed using a similar model that has been the norm for generations in Germany. The model is a way for companies to find highly skilled and motivated labor by finding interested students in high school and offer them employment while paying for a two-year community college degree.   Once the degree is obtained, the students will earn a full-time job.

 

Perez, Pittenger, and Fox all applauded the apprentice program as one that needs to be taken to a national level.

 

"I want to scale this and I want to sustain it," said Perez. "If we had more Ameritechs...we would have even more success as a country."

 

Last December, President Barack Obama and the Department of Labor launched $100 million in American Apprenticeship Grant competition, a new federal jobs program to direct people to in-demand and growing industries such as advanced manufacturing.

 

Perez toured Ameritech in part to get an idea of what works. Today, roughly 35 percent of Ameritech's 22 employees have come from the apprentice program.

 

"We're investing our money. We're investing our expertise," Perez said. "If the goal is scale, the federal government can play an important role."

 

Please continue to look to the Centralina Workforce Development Board's monthly E-Newsletter for more exciting news in the region.

 

Visit our websites at   

centralinaworks.com, WAY2WORK, and NCWORKSONLINE 

 

To send a comment about our E-Newsletter,

email awilson@centralina.org 

 

 

REMEMBER

 

Visit Centralina's NCWorks Career Centers in 7 counties!

 

ANSON, CABARRUS, LINCOLN, IREDELL-MOORESVILLE, IREDELL-STATESVILLE, LINCOLN, ROWAN, STANLY, UNION COUNTIES

CAREER CENTER LOCATIONS  

 

Workshops are held daily at Centralina's NCWorks Career Centers.

 

If you are an organization interested in hosting a workshop, please contact your local NCWorks Career Center or David Hollars at 704-348-2717 or dhollars@centralina.org 

 

 Visit Our Website!