Since the earliest humans, our evolution transformed us from hunter and gathering societies organized around clan groups, to the rise of agriculture associated with the first settled communities, to the emergence of global trade and the rise of nation states, then the First Industrial Revolution, and the Second Industrial Revolution, and now our knowledge-based economies and societies rooted in information and bio technologies.
Human talent and its drive to create is ever present in this development journey over the centuries. Today, the United States, including most of rural America, is facing an escalating human talent or workforce challenge that —in some locations and industries— is now in crisis.