The Northern California Center of Excellence in partnership with the Center for Applied Competitive Technology (CACT) Hub @ Cerritos College recently completed a series of research studies on manufacturing industries in California. Each study assessed and mapped the workforce and economic trends across ten regions; the findings are being used by the CACT to determine how to best serve the industry. Highlights include:

• Biotechnology: California's educated workforce, renowned research institutions, and access to venture capital have positioned the state as the nation's leader in biotechnology manufacturing. According to a national bioscience study released by Battelle Technology Partnership Practice in 2010, California saw more bioscience research and development, initiated more clinical trials, and awarded more bioscience postsecondary degrees than any other state. In the next five years, this sector is expected to add more than 18,500 jobs (10.5 percent projected job growth rate), growing considerably faster than California's overall economy, which is projected to grow by only 6 percent.
   
• Food Processing: Despite the economic recession, the food process sector has remained fairly stable for a couple of key reasons. (1) Food is a necessity. While the recession has caused many Californians to rethink their budget and cut back on non-essential items, the demand for packaged foods remains relatively unscathed compared to sales in other industries. (2) Demand for food exports is high. California exports more agricultural products than any other state in the nation with 12.9 percent of the nation's total agriculture exports. Production in the agriculture sector fuels growth in the food manufacturing sector, as these industries are part of a highly integrated supply chain.
   
• Aerospace: California is home to a robust aerospace sector with a strong supplier presence, a pipeline of highly skilled workers, and more NASA centers than any other state. However, the aerospace sector was significantly impacted by the economic recession and is expected to rebound somewhat slowly. Yet, every region in California except Los Angeles County is expected to add jobs over the next five years.
   
• Printing and Publishing: California's printing and publishing sector generated $35 billion in gross annual revenues in 2009. However, the demand for goods and services in this sector has dropped in all regions throughout California, due to changing consumer demographics, atomization of basic business processes, increased dependence on the internet, as well as the national recession. Over the next five years, the print and publishing sector will begin to stabilize, with projected decline of only 2 percent.

Nick Kremer, the executive dean of Community, Industry and Technology Education at Cerritos College said, "These industry profiles provide an invaluable foundation for understanding specific manufacturing sectors, identifying service gaps, and planning programs. One can get both a statewide and a regional picture of a given type of business such as food manufacturing. These profiles will be used by the CACTs and California community colleges statewide."

For more information and the full reports, please visit www.MakingItInCalifornia.com 

back to top

Their business may start with manufacturing aircraft engine nacelles, but it really gets going when a corporate culture believes in employee investment, environmental responsibility and safety. Nacelles, the "pods" that surround aircraft engines and help airplanes stop, are the primary product of Goodrich Aerostructures. In 2008, the company contacted the San Diego Environmental Training Center (ETC) @ Cuyamaca College to assist with their environmental health and safety (EH&S) training needs in Chula Vista; most recently the company is hiring 50 new employees to support over 20 new programs. With a growing need for EH&S training staff, Lito Alfaro, senior EHS engineer, looked to the ETC to bring economic and workforce development resources to the table. The ETC is working with Goodrich to plan their training schedule for 2011.

Goodrich Manager, Rick Siordia, said, "As awareness and a culture of compliance grow, so does the need for additional training, including EH&S compliance.  To help us in our growing need, we wanted to find a local supplier that could provide trainers with a wide variety of expertise to cover the many training requirements. ETC is not only knowledgeable with the various training topics but also knows the local regulators and what is important to them."

Enloe Medical Center is making an investment in their employees in workforce training through a partnership with the Health Workforce Initiative (HWI) and the Butte College Training Place which assists local businesses with high quality workforce education and services focusing on continuous workforce improvement. As a Gold Level sponsor of the Training Place, Enloe is provided 170 sessions of workforce training for its $5,000 yearly investment.

The HWI worked with Enloe's Education Department to plan training and topics for its workforce which includes an annual training plan for each of its participating employees. General areas of workforce training include Supervisor Development, Communication and Conflict Management, Manager Development, Sexual Harassment Prevention, and Technology/Computer Training. These training plans are a benefit to Enloe in retaining the workforce talent in which it invests.

The Health Workforce Initiative Centers are located throughout California and continue to invest in high demand training for health occupations.  For more on this initiative, contact Linda Zorn at lzorn@cccewd.net or go to http://ca-hwi.org.

California's economy and our workforce are increasingly dependent upon global markets. With China expected to surpass the U.S. as the world's largest economy in the next ten years [and India to follow], the greatest contribution to global economic growth is expected to come from emerging economies. Just as tens of millions of Chinese today are learning English as a second language, so they can compete for jobs at home and business opportunities abroad, Americans also need to prepare themselves to compete in and contribute to the changing global economy.

Recognizing the critical role that exporting plays in stimulating economic growth, President Obama launched the 2010 National Export Initiative (NEI) with the goal of doubling exports in the next five years. The NEI is designed to help firms, especially small businesses, overcome the hurdles of entering new export markets; improved export performance will, in turn, create good high-paying jobs.

Centers for International Trade Development (CITD) provide a critical function by raising awareness of the benefits of exporting and helping to prepare firms, and entrepreneurs, to respond to international business opportunities through workforce training programs and technical assistance. Each of the eight CITD centers provide international business workshops on global marketing, logistics, international finance, sales contracting and other topics that provide companies and entrepreneurs with the knowledge and skills needed to capture export opportunities and reduce risks associated with conducting international business.

Don Barton, CEO of Gold River Orchards in Oakdale California, is just one of the hundreds of California businesses that has benefited from CITD export training programs. He attended the CalAgX export training program, offered by the CITD @ Fresno and the California Department of Food and Agriculture, and has seen his exports grow substantially from only 30 percent of his business in 2004 to the majority of his business in 2010.

If you've been to the movies or watched TV lately, you know that Hollywood has gone digital.  Virtually all the sounds you hear and pictures you see are produced with digital equipment and software technologies that did not exist just a few short years ago. These new technologies require constant retraining for industry professionals. 

But, industry professionals don't work for a traditional company or business;  a 'business' is a temporary project  that  assembles a team of talent (above the line) and Union workers (below the line) for a specific production.  Before and after each production the 'workforce' is essentially unemployed until the next project.

In the Entertainment Industry, it's the Unions that coordinate training for these workers, and one of the greatest challenges is getting the right software training which can advance the skills of these technicians.

Education Director, Laurence Abrams, of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 695 representing Production Sound Technicians, Television Engineers, Video Assist Technicians and Studio Projectionists in the motion picture and television industry took the problem to EWD's New Media and Entertainment Initiative (NMEI) for a solution. One of NMEI's Centers in Los Angles called IDEAS: Institute for Developing Entertainment Arts & Studies acquired a training grant to alleviate these challenges. IDEASDirector, Richard Holdredge, leveraged the grant with partial funding from Union Local 695 to design a customized program utilizing the training staff from the IDEAS program and their two fully-equipped computer labs located on the Los Angeles Valley College campus in Van Nuys, California.   

Local 695 has booked the IDEAS training facilities each June for the past three years; each training has been fully booked and at full capacity for over 90 union entertainment technology  workers.  The training has been invaluable to helping these men and women stay employable with the rapidly evolving technology in entertainment.  Their work can be seen on productions like Glee, Avatar and American Idol.

For more information about EWD's New Media & Entertainment Initiative, go to www.NMEIEWD.net or contact Steve Wright at (805 )496-8583 or steve@cccewd.net.