PERRYSBURG — Collaboration was the key word at the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments keynote panel discussion on workforce development.

The general assembly event last week featured four speakers on the workforce development panel, who all agreed that Northwest Ohio, and specifically Wood County, were seeing business growth, but employee attraction and talent growth were not keeping pace with needs.

“Regionalism is really going to be the key. I know that’s a dirty word, but this organization is the one that does it best,” Russell Mills, senior director of the Center for Regional Development at Bowling Green State University, said.

He added that the regional support must include help for smaller businesses and employee attraction, through improvement of quality of life.

He called the employment problem “the new norm,” and said “I do think this is here to stay.”

Mills said that the number one trend is “so many people starting their own businesses, and frankly, we don’t deal with that well in Ohio.”

Support for those businesses will be needed if there is going to be sustainability in that trend.

Monroe County Community College President Kojo Quartey, Ph.D. is an economist who advises students at his school to “get a credential of economic value.”

Toward that end, he is in favor of the plan in Michigan for free community college. It is toward the state goal of having 60% of working age Michiganders having a certificate or college degree by 2030. He noted that Ohio has a similar goal.

Edward Ewers, superintendent of Penta Career Center in Perrysburg, was also part of the panel.

Penta has been working with manufacturers on determining their needs in employees.

Part of the Penta plan is maximizing work-based learning. The school has recently been bringing industrial businesses into their labs to help write the student curriculum, for a real world application of knowledge.

He used the example of Rosenboom Custom Crafted Cylinders, Bowling Green, that has been taking part in that project.

At this point, 97.4% of the on-campus programs are aligned with in-demand jobs.

Mary DeWitt, from OhioMeansJobs Wood County Center, suggested that employers invest in the employees, through training and upskilling the incumbent workforce.

“The people are there, they just don’t have the skills,” DeWitt said.

She also suggested that employers become family friendly. A key component to being family friendly is childcare.

“I could talk for half an hour on childcare,” DeWitt said.

Mills supported what DeWitt was seeing, with the pandemic accelerating retirements and a generally declining labor force. He said the birth rate has fallen since 2008.

In 2004 the immigration rate was approximately 1.2 million and that has fallen to 707,000 in 2022, Mills said.

Timothy Murphy, principal for Civil and Environmental Consultants Inc., commented after the panel presentation.

“The job market, it’s very tight, which we already knew, but it’s going to continue to be that way, I think. One of the things I heard there is that they don’t really see an end in sight, which is tough right now. We’re an engineering and environmental firm and it’s hard for us to find good candidates to hire and we’re constantly looking, and it sounds like that’s going to continue,” Murphy said.

The company is spread across several states and has a Toledo office, with the bulk of their current Northwest Ohio work in Wood County.

“We would love to hire local folks and keep it local, and help them grow their career,” Murphy said.

During the general assembly session, Perrysburg Mayor Tom Mackin was elected vice chair of TMACOG. He said that he’s looking forward to working with newly elected chair, Bowling Green Mayor Mike Aspacher.

Mackin also commented on the job market and the role of municipalities.

“There needs to be a real effort to collaborate on how to train and prepare for job opportunities. If we can get ahead of that, that would be great for the region and it would attract more businesses and improve the quality of life,” Mackin said. “The competition for quality trained employees is really going to be something to consider. That also means that we have to put the resources in to train people.”

Prior to the keynote event, caucus sessions were held between the various levels of government.

State Rep. Haraz Ghanbari, R-Perrysburg, attended the county caucus.

“We had a strong conversation about what projects in Northwest Ohio are important right now,” Ghanbari said. “Let’s face it, if Ohio doesn’t take advantage of those federal dollars, then those federal dollars are going to go elsewhere to other states.”

Discussions included topics related to various modes of transportation, including the use of rail, both for freight and passenger service.

“I’m also talking about Amtrak. There’s federal dollars for that right now, and I signed on to advocate for some of those federal dollars,” he said. “It’s not just your traditional east-west corridors, but also potential train traffic north-south.”

Ghanbari added that they also discussed a transportation corridor tying Columbus to Toledo in a link to the East Coast.

Ghanbari said he has had conversations with Tim Brown, TMACOG president, about legislation to engage the federal monetary support for Amtrak.