New program helps adults improve their career skills

Entrepreneur center gets $100,000 grant

Forum provides help for displaced workers

The Messenger
July 31, 2003

New program helps adults improve their career skills

Participants in the Workforce Connections Adult Youth Program must range in age from 19-21 and meet one of five barriers. They must be pregnant or a parent, homeless, deficient in basic skills, a high school dropout or an offender.

"Due to the age, I will push education," said Coordinator Tammy Hardy. "That is my No. 1 push. I am a firm believer that the only way you will get anywhere in life is through continuing your education."

This program started July 1, just as the Training through Interactive Educational Resources program at MCC came to an end because its grant funding was not renewed. Hardy previously coordinated the TIER program, but the new program is not a replacement for it.

The two-year TIER program helped any adult enroll in postsecondary education, find employment and improve basic skills.

"We were told I was only supposed to reach a capacity of 300 clients and I pretty much doubled that," said Hardy, who is based at MCC's technical campus. She worked with 560 clients, many of whom "did not have that extra push or motivation."

"The reason it was not renewed was that Frankfort had to do budget cuts," she said. "That is one thing that still bothers me. I still have a lot of my TIER clients to call me. ... I couldn't complete everybody's goal."

The goals of 77 percent of clients were achieved.

During the past year, the program enrolled 351 people. Of those, 90 enrolled in college, with 60 successfully attending. There were 137 clients who upgraded basic skills, with 48 of them finding employment.

Nine similar programs across the state lost their funding this year, Hardy said. The program offered workshops and operated in partnership with other community agencies.

A former client recently let Hardy know how much she had been helped by the program. The woman, who lives in the Pride Housing Authority and has four children, took the Autoliv employment test but didn't pass, so she entered the TIER program. She did well on the retest, so Hardy notified Autoliv.

"She was immediately hired and is still working there today," Hardy said. "She said, 'You don't know how you have uplifted some of my problems.'"

The woman is applying for a Habitat for Humanity home and is enrolling at MCC.

"A lot of people had that potential, but were told to stay home," Hardy said. "There's always a starting point for education. There's never an ending point."

A challenge with the new Workforce Connections Program is the "very narrow" age range, she said.

"That's going to be a big deal, that 19 to 21 years of age," Hardy said. "It's going to be hard to place people. With those five barriers and only allowing the age group 19 to 21, I have my work cut out for me."

Participants must be recruited and then placed in full-time or part-time employment for up to six months. The first potential clients are expected to sign up by the end of August. Hardy will specifically target Family Resource and Youth Service Center parents, Head Start parents, new college students, and Door of Hope clients.

"This is excellent for the employer and the employee," she said.

Payroll for the workers will be processed and paid by Pennyrile Area Development District, which received a Workforce Investment Act grant for the program.

Services offered to participants include employability workshops, basic computer class, career assessment test, interview outfit from "the success closet" and help finding employment. They will also receive help enrolling in college and improving their communications skills.

"We're not just concentrating on welfare recipients," Hardy said. "My whole point is to get people standing on their own as a citizen." Many adults simply need support, a mentor, or someone to talk to, she said.

"I make every one of my clients work for everything they have," Hardy said, "because in the real world, you have to work for it."

The Daily Independent
July 31, 2003

Entrepreneur center gets $100,000 grant

ASHLAND A center for new businesses has been funded to continue operations through July 2004, but will have to look for new funding sources after that, officials said.

The Ashland Community & Technical College Entrepreneur Center has received a near $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to cover operational and improvement costs, including a renovation, ACTC officials announced Tuesday.

Housed in Ashland's G.B. Johnson Building, the center started two years ago as a place to nurture small businesses.

The center, which is also sponsored by Junior Achievement of the Tri-State and Morehead State University's Ashland Small Business Development Center, provides entrepreneurs with one year of rent-free office space and support to develop their businesses.

One local business to get its start at the center is Family Tree Entertainment, an Ashland-based recording studio and concert-promotion firm.

According to ACTC, the Entrepreneur Center is being remodeled to present a more professional atmosphere, improve and increase the number of client computers and host a larger number of start-up businesses.

The center will also offer online business classes within the coming year.

Ed Shytle, director of the center, said the facility has had an average of 70 percent occupancy since its inception.

"It's been going really well," he said.

Shytle said center officials need to focus their efforts on 2004-05.

"There have been times when we haven't been funded, and (ACTC) has underwritten the cost," Shytle said. "But, with what colleges are facing now budget-wise, we can't rely on that."

The Daily Independent
July 31, 2003

Forum provides help for displaced workers

ASHLAND Byron Preston moved from Delaware to the Ashland area to take a job in information technology with Applied Card Systems' Russell call center.

He and several hundred others found themselves out of work when the company abruptly closed the center in April. Since then, Preston said had sent out about 80 resumes.

He said he has only had one job interview in response.

"I can't buy a job," he said. "There's just nothing out there."

A program Thursday in Ashland sought to provide help for Preston and others like him.

Morehead State University's Ashland Small Business Development Center, Kentucky Small Business Development Centers, the Ashland Alliance and U.S. Rep. Ken Lucas teamed up to sponsor an economic and work force development forum at the G.B. Johnson Education and Economic Center.

The goal of the forum was to provide information and assistance to workers who have been displaced as a result of the shutdowns of Applied Card Systems, Kentucky Electric Steel Inc. and Corbin Ltd., said Kim Jenkins, director of the MSU Small Business Development Center and one of the event's coordinators.

The program was the brainchild of Lucas, who met several months ago with Becky Naugle, director of the Kentucky Small Business Development Centers, and requested that the centers partner with local organizations to provide a forum where unemployed workers could get information on educational, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, said Ashland Mayor Steve Gilmore, a panelist for the event.

The forum brought together a number of officials from area institutions involved in education and economic development, including Ashland Community & Technical College, the FIVCO Area Development District and the city of Ashland's Economic Development Office.

"We're here to see what we can do to open the door for you," Gilmore said.

Gary Bradford, director of ACTC's Center for Community Workforce and Economic Development, said he could identify with the situation that many of those in attendance were facing.

Bradford said he left a comfortable position with Ashland Inc. to take a job with a company in Colorado. Eighteen months later, the company folded, he said.

He said it took him a year and a half to find another job.

"You have a full-time job now, and that's looking for another job," Bradford said. "You're a sales manager and you have one product - your willingness and desire to work."

Bradford said some displaced workers might have to consider leaving the area "because some of you have skill sets that might not be marketable here."

Gail Melvin, Ashland's economic development director, advised laid-off workers to be aggressive in searching for new employment.

"Get out. Don't stay at home. Don't wait," she said.

Preston, the former Applied Card worker, said he felt he had tried his hardest to find new employment, and was growing frustrated at running into nothing but dead ends.

He said he felt what was really needed in the area was more employment opportunities.

Preston said the only job openings his search kept turning up was truck driving positions. So, he is planning to go to truck driving school, even though that would not have been his first choice for a new career.

"I've got to support my family," he said. "The bottom line is, I work."