Well, so I think back about my own journey. I probably knew at first grade kind of what I wanted to do.
SPEAKER_01Why am I not surprised?
SPEAKER_00I had it all figured out. I was gonna have two jobs. I was gonna work at Dunkin' Donuts, making donuts, because I love donuts. Uh-huh. And then I was gonna be a school bus driver.
SPEAKER_02Oh, there you go.
SPEAKER_00So I had it all worked out. I was gonna make donuts in the morning, then I was gonna take some fresh donuts and be a school bus driver and take donuts with me on the route. Then I was gonna go back to the donut shop, work at the donut shop until the school day got ended, and then I was gonna take kids home.
SPEAKER_03That's such a great place. I might change that mind for you, Michael. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00But uh welcome back to So Let's Talk Columbus. I'm Michael Welcoast, Vice President of Community Engagement at United Way of Central Ohio. In preparation for the conversation today, and I was looking up some research about how strong is the Central Ohio economy. Everybody knows that Columbus is growing, but I was uh even surprised myself when I looked up the statistics for uh the largest metropolitan areas, those would be with a million people or more, and currently Columbus's unemployment rate is sitting at 2.7%, which is the uh second lowest unemployment rate in the United States right now. And last year the Columbus economy added 20,607 nut jobs, meaning that we were the fourth fastest growing uh job market in the country last year, even beating places like Charlotte, North Carolina. So uh it is uh surprising to see those statistics, but it's a confirmation that if you're looking for a job in central Ohio, this is a good place to be.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00But you know, I really want to start with a question that sounds simple, but actually isn't. Then that is if you work full-time, should you be able to afford to live? Most people would say yes, absolutely, of course. But here in Franklin County, more than 204,000 families are working and still coming up short. Not because they're not trying, but because the cost of housing, food, child care, transportation, and health care has outrun what their jobs pay. The new Alice data puts a name to this asset limited, income constrained, employed.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00These are the people making your coffee, caring for your parents, and stocking the shelves. They're the backbone of this city, and the math is not working in their favor. Think about this statistic. 33% of full-time workers in Ohio don't earn enough to cover a basic survival budget for just one adult and one child. Okay. And the cost of basics has been rising faster than wages for more than 15 years. This didn't happen overnight, and it's not going to fix itself. So what do we actually do about it? It's not a rhetorical question. Today's guest has spent her career answering it. Lisa Pat McDaniel is the CEO of Aspire Workforce Innovation, formerly the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio, and she's been at the helm since the organization's founding in 2016. Before that, she spent over 20 years at the Ohio Department of Development, rising to director and a seat in the governor's cabinet. When it comes to jobs, wages, and building real economic opportunity in our region, Lisa is the expert. Here's what I also love about this conversation. Lisa understands that workforce development isn't just about today's jobs, it's about the pipeline. And that pipeline starts way earlier than most people think. It starts with whether a child can read by the end of third grade. Lisa, we're so glad you're here, and welcome to So Let's Talk Columbus.
SPEAKER_03Thank you for the invitation. I'm looking forward to the conversation.
SPEAKER_00So before we get into the big picture, uh tell us a little bit about your background and what drew you to workforce development as your life's work.
SPEAKER_03Well, I can tell you that I spent a lot of my time at the state. I was in economic development and community development. And in the 90s, probably the late 90s, we were locating yet another logistics company essentially in Northwest Ohio, but in Finley, which is in an urban area, right? The urban area is Toledo. And for the very first time it dawned on me where are all these people going to come from? Because this was like the second or third, they were a lot of jobs, and Finley's not that big of a community, and it doesn't really draw from that big of an area. So that's when it first dawned on me. But then a little bit later on, uh, when I Lee Fisher was director of the Department of Development, and he asked me, would I go to uh the workforce division, essentially started as a division, take over the governor's workforce board. And I gotta tell you, in economic development, it's a deal-drawn-driven world, right? You get the company, you land just like what people do here. They're getting the companies, they land it. But the workforce, actually, you would think people come with a plan, they really don't. Number one. And number two, um, you really don't, as a person who does the work, you don't get to see uh the effect of what you're doing. I did have the opportunity once, and this is probably what really drove it to me. So in Ironton, Ohio, also in Appalachia, Southern Appalachia, um, they lost two major companies, and um they were devastated. I mean, it was a lot of jobs. One of the companies we had helped get there maybe 10 years before, and they were already leaving. And um a uh company out of uh Delaware uh was going to expand and they were gonna locate down in Mexico. But uh a gentleman by the name of John Kerry, which was the third John Kerry in my life at that time, the U.S. senator, the state senator, this guy, um, heard is the company, and he really felt that he could expand work here in the US, and he was looking for a place to do that in Ohio. And uh I kept saying to him, you know, we had this company that had left, it had the perfect facility, it had clean rooms, the things they needed, and you really need to go down. Let me, you know, have you go down there? And he was like, you know, he didn't once it didn't seem interested. And then one day he calls me, I'm on my way down to Ironton and I want to see this building. You know, fast forward, they chose to move there. And uh, I actually had never seen this guy talk to him on the phone the whole time. Um, and then I met him there once they had located. Now I might start to cry, so just so you know. So we're walking through the plant, he and I together, and uh a gentleman comes up to us, and he had worked for another one of the companies that had closed, and he came up and uh he said to uh John Kerry, he said, I just want you to know how grateful I am that you moved your company here to Ironton. And I was a in management at uh this other company, and it was devastating when I lost my job. And here I am, I've got this fantastic job, you're a great company, I have health benefits. And my wife was recently diagnosed with cancer. And I said, This is one of the few times in economic development where I actually could see how somebody having this job with this benefit and this pay and what that meant for, you know, his family. And that made me right there understand that no, the game is workforce. The game isn't an economic development, it's very important. We're really two sides, different sides of the same coin. But I started to see, no, I want to be on this side of the coin because I want to help people improve their lives by getting a job, a quality job, offers benefits, pays well, and allows people to live a high quality of life. And that's what we're going for. And that's why I'm in workforce.
SPEAKER_00That's a great story. That actually uh made me tear up because it made me reflect on just growing up in Youngstown and what happened to Youngstown. I mean, I was 10 years old when the mills closed and just how devastating it was for so many families that you know literally had to be uprooted, and at that point, so many people just had to move because there wasn't a backfilling of economic opportunity in that community. So thank you for sharing that story.
SPEAKER_03Well, and then you can see why we have such a passion here where we're in an economy where there's all these, there are a lot of well-paid jobs and a lot of people who know how to work. These Alice households, these are people who are working, maybe even two jobs to make ends meet. It's not that they don't know how to work, they don't have the skills to get those higher paying jobs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And here we are. And how do we do that?
SPEAKER_00How many jobs currently are available in the Columbus market, do you know?
SPEAKER_03Uh, the last time I looked, which I will tell you is it's been about a week and a half, were over 30,000 postings at that time. Uh I haven't looked today, so I probably should have done that. But there's like over 30,000 postings. The highest postings, if you're gonna ask me, are nursing. Uh that continues to be the highest ever since I've taken this job. Um, you know, there are need for truck drivers. There are a lot of in-demand jobs. There are a lot of in-demand jobs that also don't pay well or not quality jobs, but are desperately needed. Child care, uh, home health care, those don't pay well.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm not surprised to hear that nursing is top of the list given that there's such a construction boom with hospitals in our city. Yes. Uh so, you know, many people have not heard of Aspire by its new name, but they may know the Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio. Can you tell us uh what the organization does and why the rebrand to Aspire Workforce Innovation?
SPEAKER_03Sure. So uh my board for the longest time was like, why do we have such a government-sounding name when we're a nonprofit standalone organization? And what does it really tell anybody? And so uh we decided we needed to rebrand. Um, what we do is we help job seekers get the skills they need to get those high-quality jobs and get into those high-quality career pathways where there's economic mobility. And then on the other side, we help employers develop those talent pipelines so they are able to staff their companies and be prosperous and be able to pay a self-family self-sufficiency type of wage.
SPEAKER_00Got it. Um, I've uh heard it described by you previously that the Aspire mission is creating access opportunities for prosperity, but in practical terms, what does that look like on a given day and who are you serving and in what ways?
SPEAKER_03That's a great question. That could take us the next hour.
SPEAKER_00So what's the what's the headline?
SPEAKER_03What's the headline? So uh when we're talking about on the economic prosperity side, um uh what that looks like in a day, are people are presenting themselves or calling us or uh interacting with us in a variety of ways? Uh the jobs, these are job seekers, these are people who want employment uh through our job center, the Ohio Means Job Center. It's at 1111 East Broad Street. Um, and what we are doing is we're helping them to assess, you know, what is it, what are your strengths, what are your skills, what would you like to do? We often help people decide, you think you want to do this? Is this truly what you want to do? Like, I want to be a nurse, but then I find out I have to deal with needles and blood and other fluids I might not want to deal with. So we help them decide, you know, really what is the best path, and then we create a playbook for them. Okay, how do we get on that path? Uh we do have uh money where we invest in people with their training. Um and then we are uh working directly with employers, so we don't just train people, we train people with a job at the end, and so um we make very hard decisions about the kinds of training we'll invest in. Uh, we want people to come out of this benefits unattached in a job that has the ability to grow with a credential that's portable. So if I come to work for you today and maybe this isn't working out or there's not an opportunity for me to grow here, I can go to this company because I have a credential that belongs to me. It wasn't specific to your company, right? Um, like nursing, you know, it's not specific to a hospital. You can go to another hospital if you need to grow. Um and and so it's also offering those supports, right? So they can get those skills. You know, I talked about those Alice households. They have um, when do they have time exactly to get a credential without support? And that's one of the things I talk about until I'm blue in the face in this community. Is if you want a talent pipeline on the employer side, and if you want people who have money to spend on your products so that your economy works for you, then we have got to support people. They can't just walk away from their two jobs and then um, you know, and then go to six, eight or you know, nursing, that's a much longer um road way to get to your credential. Um, and then nobody's gonna pay their bills or pay their housing or take care of their children. We've got to, we have limited money to do that, and we spend it every year. Transportation, you know, child care in the interim. Um, you know, do you need books? Do you need uniform? What do you need in order to get through this program? Um, but we don't have money that I can pay your housing. Right? I don't have money that, you know, I can't buy you a car. And I can only give you, you know, bus passes. I can maybe fix a car you have in the short term. But, you know, to really get this education to be able to have the skills, it's it's it's an investment by all of us, not just us. We don't have that kind of money.
SPEAKER_00What's some examples of training courses? Are we talking about a couple weeks or when you said nursing, that's a much longer runway. But what's what's an average with regard to how many weeks somebody might be in a training program before they're ready to be linked with an employer?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so it depends on the area they want to go to. Uh, we have programs that are, you know, eight weeks, uh, eve in manufacturing and in healthcare to get the basic skills to get you in to uh the career pathway, and then you're making money and we can help you. Um, so it can be anywhere from as short as you know, for a really good program that gets you a portable credential. We're we're talking probably somewhere between eight and 15 weeks, all the way up to right, a four-year, a four-year degree. So that's why we have other strategies.
SPEAKER_00The Ohio Means Job Center in Columbus uh served more than 12,000 visitors in 2025 alone through hiring events, career coaching, training services, and workshops. For someone who has never walked through those doors, uh, what would they find?
SPEAKER_03Well, the first thing they would find is a staff that understands you may not be walking into us on your best day. In fact, you may be working, walking into the center on your worst day or a very difficult, stressful day. Uh, but what they will find are um people who uh are not case managers, they're coaching, they're helping you, you you'll be um oriented to all the possible things you can get. Some people walk in, they just want help with a uh how do I apply for the job, how do I interview for the job, all the way to I don't really know what I want to do, or I've been doing this and I want to do that, which is a little more intensive than we're doing fun assessments. I think they're fun. Maybe people don't think they're fun when they absolutely have to have them. But they're doing assessments, they're talking to their coach, they're looking at their finances, honestly, to see how they would get into this training, would they be able to sustain themselves? They they'd be surrounded uh with the help that they need. They'd be introduced to employers directly who have the kinds of jobs they're looking for. So it's a it's a supportive environment to help people go, and anybody can walk in. We can't invest our money with just anybody, depending on their household income, but we will help them figure it out.
SPEAKER_00Do most people just walk in or do they have appointments?
SPEAKER_03No, we have a lot of people who just walk in. Now they may, what we're trying to do is we are so excited. Uh, we developed an AI agent where if people are looking to find us, if they are looking for a job and they think they're gonna there's you know help that they need, they can work through the AI agent if they want. They don't have to, and they could actually enroll directly into our more intensive program before they even show up. Oh, wow. Yeah. And they can make an appointment online. So absolutely. I mean, we love it if people make appointments. It is certainly easier, but no, they can just walk in.
SPEAKER_00So Aspire works on both sides of the equation. You work with job seekers and employers. How do you think about that dual role and why does it matter that you serve both?
SPEAKER_03Do you know who Janice is, the god of who looks both ways? That's how we feel.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03We're like looking both ways. Or we also sometimes joke we're in the canon chasm between employers and job seekers, trying to hold it together and be the bridge to help both of them understand uh who needs what and why and how it's mutually beneficial. Um, so um, you know, we spend we spend a lot of time on both sides trying to find solutions that benefit both. So, as an example, um, an important strategy for us is apprenticeship because as an employer, you get somebody working for you much more quickly. Um, and then as a job seeker, you're getting your skills and you're getting school or whatever credential training paid for uh while you are working and earning a wage. And so uh we have an apprentice, the apprentice apprenticeship resource hub center, uh, and we are partnered with the Workforce Board to our East, South Central Workforce Partnership, and we're trying, we got a $4 million grant from the federal government, and we are trying to educate and help employers use apprenticeship as a model because it is mutually beneficial. But employers think of apprenticeship as the trades, and so they have to really be shown no, no, it's not just the trades certainly have it down, and they've been doing it since Egypt was started as a country. But uh this could really work for you too, and so we're working with some manufacturers, we work in healthcare on those. So um, I hope I'm answering your question.
SPEAKER_00I'm curious, uh, because you've been in the role for a decade now, uh, and given the 30,000 openings that you mentioned and the low unemployment rate, I'm assuming this is a time period where the employers are more flexible in their thinking.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I would say since COVID, um, well, let me step back. And you probably know this because you know numbers so well, right? The tsunami of having less people in the workforce, that's been coming. We've known that since the late 90s when we started paying attention to it. We have baby boomers, baby boomers are getting out. You know, um, we knew Gen X, my generation that nobody cares about. We were small, right? We had millennials, millennials have faced their own issues kind of growing up and coming into the workforce, and now we have Gen Z. Um, but we knew we had this coming. I think what happened is when we hit COVID and the shutdown and all the supply chain, everything that happened there. What it did is it exacerbated it. It happened quicker, maybe, than we thought it would. Um, and now it's even happening more quickly. And this is in no way a political statement. This is a number statement. When you don't have new Americans and we don't have immigrants or refugees coming in to take jobs, that number, that 30,000 number, we're gonna go up like pretty quickly if we don't have people to take those to take jobs, more jobs. Any of our jobs, our highly skilled jobs. I'm not Suggesting they should be in our lowest level jobs. It's just that we have a lot of jobs and you need people and the math does not work and will not be working.
SPEAKER_00Well, just to add to that, right, in 2024, the Central Ohio region added 30,000 additional residents. Last year we only added just over 20,000, and that big difference was the drop in the number of new Americans that came into Central Ohio. So 70% of our growth in 2024 was new Americans. It was 50% in 2025, still a significant number, but it's definitely trending downward.
SPEAKER_03It is. And uh you pointed out at the beginning, we have an extremely low unemployment rate. Everybody talks about the labor participation rate, which I would suggest is not the right number to look at. The right number to look at is prime working age ratio, which is people between 24 and 59, I believe. If you look at that number, Ohio as a whole is up over, you know, getting close to 90%. I think in central Ohio, it's hard to get just central Ohio numbers on that, but we're way high in the 80s. Everybody who's working can work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And some people are working more than one job. And we have all these jobs that are open. And unless we attract more people from Chicago, which last time I looked was one of the internal, one of the cities that actually were people more migrating from. Right. You're just what you're doing is you're stealing people from other places. Like, you know, in the 90s, so many people from Youngstown came into the central Ohio area. And um, you know, but as a state, that's not great. You're just stealing people from everywhere else. Um, that game just can't be played forever.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So let's connect what you do to Alice. We've talked about Alice now a couple times uh because I think it tells a really important story. Uh, we know that 37% of households in Franklin County are below the Alice threshold. They're working but not earning enough to cover the basics. When you see that number, what does it say to you about the labor market in Central Ohio?
SPEAKER_03People aren't being paid enough in wages. And those jobs that are paying enough in wages, people can't get the skills for those jobs. That's what it tells me right there. Um that is, I mean, that has grown, right? From when we first started started talking about households in Franklin County. Uh, before COVID, I think we were saying something like 20, 25%, which is still unacceptable and too much. Uh, these are people who cannot get, they're not getting extra benefits, or they're, you know, the people who are between underneath the poverty level, which is stayed relatively steady, right? Between 10-12%. But that group is growing and growing, and that is dangerous, I think, for the economy. It's just dangerous for the central Ohio economy because that when people don't have household income, this is what I say to employers, people don't have household income, they cannot spend it, and then that eventually hurts. You know, uh, rich people can only drive so many cars.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03And everyone's not a collector, so there you go.
SPEAKER_00Is Central Ohio different than in Indianapolis or Charlotte, or is this kind of a national problem?
SPEAKER_03No, I think it's a national problem. I I definitely think it's a national problem. Indy, Indianapolis and Charlotte um have, as you know, are uh similar um in some ways, actually in a lot of ways. Austin is another one. I just heard something about Austin. Can we really say Austin is affordable anymore? Yeah, probably not. Um and I just um I think we had an opportunity. I'm gonna say something contrab. I think we had an opportunity when we had all this ARPA money pumped in and we're just about at the very end of that. That was a fantastic opportunity for us to actually pull together and really invest to stop this from happening. And we did it. We did not.
SPEAKER_00And why do you think that that was the case? I mean, I know there was a lot of um concentration on making sure people just stayed stable in their housing, and something like $154 million in federal money uh was deployed to keep people stable in their housing.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and that's important and and needed to be spent. But there was a whole lot of other ARPA funds besides that money. So I think we should have looked at everything holistically, keeping people housed, number one. People can't do anything, they can't go to work, they can't get skills, they can't, you know, do a variety of things if they're not stably housed. That's almost like number one. But there was a lot more money poured into the economy from the federal government, a lot more money made available. And we did things, we absolutely did things. You know, the county uh was generous, they gave us money to help people, women, particularly women uh who had to step out of the economy, find their way back into the economy and in a stable way. Um, certainly money is being spent on the um community information exchange that has very expensive endeavor, a lot of ARPA money's gone into it, and it has long-term benefits for people trying to get assistance. But I just think um maybe we should have taken a look at everything we had and indexed it and said, okay, what's we got people housed now? How do we move the needle so they can pay for their housing long term?
SPEAKER_00Talk a little bit more about the community information exchange. That's something we've not yet talked about on the show.
SPEAKER_03But you should, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh we can focus on that in an upcoming segment, but give us a little bit more detail about what that will be.
SPEAKER_03Sure, sure. Uh so uh the idea was uh brought to Central Ohio from San Francisco. So San Francisco has this, and uh it initially uh was very much about health sharing health information. Um and it's very similar to what the homeless uh system has with uh a pro um it's called CMIS and management. I forget what it's called. HMIS. HMIS, yeah. Oh my gosh, CMIS. Thank you. Sure. No, because it's yes, HMIS. So it's it's similar in that, right? Uh they use that so they can see where have people, what kind of services have they already received, where have they been, what's happened. The community information uh exchange uh here is uh hosted right now by Smart Columbus. Um I'm very excited because Aspire is the backbone to the Central Ohio Workforce Development Network, and those are 13 organizations, all who are doing workforce development and coaching and supporting. Um we are uh six of those members are going to be the test groups, and then the rest of the network will add on. But the idea is that if I need help, I can go into Marcy, that's what its name is. It will be promoted as Marcy. Uh I could go into Marcy, I could say, I need, I have these this information, I control what I want, if I want my information shared with United Way and I don't know, Impact. I control who gets to see my information, but I'm offered here are the potential things that could be helpful to you. And then I could pick and choose, it will help me apply if there's an application, it'll connect me to somebody in an organization who will help me. But let's say, let's say they come to the job center um, but they need um heating and cooling assistance. They can't pay for their electric bill or their gas bill. Okay, so your information is already in the CIE in Marcy. Uh, we're gonna say, hey, we're gonna have you go to Impact. They run that program. I go to Impact and they don't ask me the same 50 questions that the job center asked me. That information is already there. And I just have to say, yes, you can see this information. Please don't make me tell my story again. Here it all is. And it will be. How nice will that be for clients? And then at the job center, if I was a coach and I sent you over there, I could see in Marcy, did you get the assistance you needed? I can help follow up. I know who helped you, and I can follow up with that. So this is an opportunity for us to surround a person without having them have to feel the hassles of getting help.
SPEAKER_00And so, what's the timing on when Marcy will be fully operational?
SPEAKER_03Well, we are just getting to where we're going to be piloting it into the fall, winter, into the spring. I believe, don't quote me, but I believe by next spring it would be open, um, start to be open to the public. But the main, as you can imagine, the big work is cataloging all of the services.
SPEAKER_00Um that's been going on now for a couple of years.
SPEAKER_03Right, right, right. With 211.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right. And so hopefully this will also be something 211 would be able to use. So great.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, one thing the data makes clear is that this isn't about people not working hard enough. It's about wages not keeping pace with the real cost of living. The Alice hospital survival budget for family of four in Franklin County is now just over $81,000 a year, but the federal poverty line for that same family is just $31,200. That's a massive gap.
SPEAKER_03That is a massive, yes.
SPEAKER_00From a workforce development perspective, how do you even begin to close that gap?
SPEAKER_03I wish I were Houdini. Um, yeah, it is a huge. I think one thing that we should have done a long time ago is take a look at what we mean by poverty and um look at the limited dollars left to help people get through hard times, which not making enough money in a job is longer than just hard times, is maybe we should we should be looking at raising the level that is considered eligible for certain kinds of benefits. You know, we've tried to do that. There has been some playing around with that for child care. Um, perhaps child care should be reclassified as a public good and not as a benefit for people who can't who are on benefits. That's a whole nother show, I'm sure. Um, but I think one of the things we need to do is reclassify that and then look at how can we surround people and not just push them off of benefits as they are rising in income. I think we need to work with employers to talk about what kind of benefits are you offering. How can we help you, even if you're on slim margins, um create more higher quality jobs than maybe what you're doing? There's a lot of great employers out there who are living on Slim and they're like, I can't, I can't offer these kinds of benefits. Well, let's talk about ways that you could take what you have and uh maybe provide something that would be work better for the employee. Um that's new work for us. We're just starting to explore what that means. Uh, our board just uh recently adopted uh what we call the high-quality job framework that we will all of the work we do with on the employer side and actually on where we will invest money in training will be seen now through that lens. Are we getting people into high quality jobs? Are we working with employers that are open to figuring out how their jobs become higher quality? I mean, these are the kinds of strategies that we um have to deploy, you know. As I said, you know, looking at um apprenticeships and on-the-job training, uh earn and learn kinds of models that are like those two. Um, but you know, there's a lot of structural issues that are outside of workforce that are causing that.
SPEAKER_00You mentioned earlier that Aspire recently received a $4 million federal grant to expand registered uh apprenticeships across Central Ohio in healthcare, manufacturing, and education.
SPEAKER_02True.
SPEAKER_00For people who may not associate apprenticeships with just skilled trades, what does a modern apprenticeship look like? And why are you investing so heavily in this model?
SPEAKER_03We're investing, let's start with why is this a strategy that Aspire and its board feels super important? Because again, it meets the needs of the employer, which is to get people into jobs. And it meets the needs of that employee who needs to get the skills for the job, but doesn't necessarily have the money to be able to pay for getting the credentials they need for the job. And the beauty of this particular grant in moving this strategy forward is it's really incenting employers because the employers, we could have people who want to go into registered apprenticeship, but we have to have them. And so it incents employers by giving them money that they can turn around and use to pay for the training, right, that a person will be getting. And the beauty of apprenticeship is that uh there are built-in wage increases at each milestone of the apprenticeship. Um, I think when we say what is a modern apprenticeship, uh, I think a modern apprenticeship is the fact that an apprenticeship can be done anywhere in any heck. We did not a registered apprenticeship, but for our current CFO chance, we actually created an apprenticeship with our outgoing CFO.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. But I mean you can't, that's a little hard to register, I will just say. But but I I mean we practice what we preach at every opportunity that we can. Um it it can be done in with administrative jobs, it can be done in healthcare and nursing. Actually, we are the sponsor of a certified medical uh assistant apprenticeship and uh COPC, they are our biggest employer for uh putting cohorts into that. Um so when people I really think they don't think of apprenticeship as anything but construction, and those are really great, they have it down, but we can help other occupations uh use that model. And I think when you're talking about, let's take Gen Z, they're all, you know, I don't want to have that kind of debt to go to college. I'm a you know, I want to be in a job more quickly. Uh Gen Z tend to like to have that coaching. Well, guess what? That's that's what apprenticeship does. You've got an on-the-job coach who knows the information, who's making sure you're getting the skills you need in that job. And that that's a person who works for the company or the organization, too.
SPEAKER_00And when did you uh receive that federal grant? And for how long will that last?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so we are in uh just finishing up year two of that grant.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03So we got it, we got it in 2024. It took us a little while to get in the system, blah, blah, blah. We're in year two, so we have two more years of that grant. Um, and we're looking at uh other ways to continue to use that. Apprenticeship is uh a major strategy of the Federal Department of Labor, so that helps with that strategy. I think there's going to be a lot more resources available to us for that. So great.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00The Achieve More and Prosper Program, also known as AMP, connects young adults with coaches to help them build a customized career plan. Who is that program designed for and what does success look like?
SPEAKER_03Oh, great question. I'm glad you asked me. So just so you know, AMP at the state level is called Comprehensive Case Management and Employment Program. And no 20-year-old wants to say, hey, hey, join me. I just joined this. So AMP, uh Chief More and Prosper was actually based on focus group of 18 to 24-year-olds who helped us come up with that. And kudos to the county because they are our partner. We're in lockstep uh with the county department of job and family services. They take TANF dollars, we bring Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act dollars, we braid them together for this program.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_03Um, what it is, um, we actually just redesigned it a little bit. Uh we have hubs, so we have a manufacturing hub, a healthcare hub, a construction hub, and then a generalist hub for people who don't know what they want to do. And the idea is to take kids, there's two components. There's an in-school component. So when we identify kids who uh maybe have outside barriers or internal barriers and school barriers to finishing graduation and going on to whatever that second part of their life is going to be, there's that in school, and then there's an out-of-school program, and that is for uh people who may have graduated, maybe dropped out of high school and did not graduate. And the idea is to scoop them up, surround them with coaching, assessments, uh, support, um, helping them to decide what it is they want to do, uh, and then working with them, supporting them maybe more tightly than we would an adult who has a little usually already has more agency, helping them to get agency, uh, get credentials, get the training, and get into a great job.
SPEAKER_00I love that you did a focus group with 18 to 24 year olds to kind of come up with that brand, but let's wind the clock back even further. I want to make a connection that might surprise uh still some people. You know, here at United Way, as you know, we speak regularly about success by third grade. The idea that reading proficiency by third grade is the single greatest predictor of whether a child will graduate from high school. And we know that students who don't graduate are twice as likely to face poverty and unemployment. How do you think about the workforce pipeline starting that early? Or is it even earlier for you?
SPEAKER_03Oh, it is earlier. I, as a mother, I believe that workforce and um great uh development starts with supporting women through healthy pregnancy. So a program um, you know, like the city funds um celebrate one. Celebrate one uh is as important as uh, you know, reading by third grade. So we we've got to start earlier. And you know, what the things we need to be, we we talk so much about, you know, I have a national group come to me and say, you know, we do books that are related uh to careers, and we'd like to talk about how we could help workforce development and you know, getting into like books targeted at third grade, and all that's great. Career awareness, super important. You cannot see, you cannot be what you cannot see. But what we really need to be doing from the time a child is a sponge, you know, at you know, one month old all the way up is cultivating things like curiosity, creativity, critical, critical thinking with AI, critical thinking, right? The ability to collaborate well. Um, and the idea that I am always learning, continuous learning. I am not stopping because I've hit this milestone or I graduated from high school, and that's all I gotta ever learn. All right, I got a degree or I got this credential. And those are things we need to be cultivating from the time a child is born in every way possible that we can. And that's a parent's job, sure, but it's also a community's job to do that. And I love that, you know, especially United Way is, you know, focused on the success by third grade because I mean it is very difficult when children are leaving third grade if they don't have that most basic of skill. If you don't have that most basic of skill, you can't do any of the other things I talked about really well.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, the the data is sobering. Um, students not reading proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out. And when we look at the Alice households in Franklin County, we see that children are disproportionately affected. In fact, 61% of households headed by someone under 25 are below the Alice threshold. Uh these are young parents often struggling themselves. Uh, what does that do to a child's trajectory?
SPEAKER_03Well, we know that even the best parent who on their own tries to figure out what they're supposed to be doing, their child doesn't have the the time necessarily to read to a child, right? To speak, right? We know that the more a child is spoken to, the greater their vocabulary, the more they're read to, the greater their vocabulary. Um it also, you know, I think when a child sees their parents struggle, then they may not be able to see for themselves how you get out of that. Yeah, you know, and and you know, I know uh I I've met so many, I'll tell you the success of the job center also would make me cry. The success of the job center is in for the longest time is based on single women with children. They come in and they persevere like you would not believe, and they get they're like, by God, I am not, my child's not gonna live the way I have lived. I am going to show them that this is how you do it. And you know, those women, I I kiss their feet. I kiss their they are they are just, you know, uh parents are doing the best that they can, but they can only do the best they can within the limits of God. You know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So when we look at those non-academic barriers to learning, we see that workforce and education are deeply connected.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00How does what happened in the labor market flow downstream into what happens in the classroom?
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, well, as I've said, you know, um more than career exploration, getting kids into earn and learn situations, all of those things are great. But if we're not, if children aren't learning reading, writing, and math, communication, collaboration, curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, if they're not learning those things, um, by the time they aren't going to be prepared for the labor force. Uh, and they're not going to maybe be using their talents to the best that they could be using them because they never had a sense a chance to really think about it. They kind of maybe will just fall into their life. And I don't want people to do that. I want them to live the life they want to live. And that could be baking donuts. Because by God, yeah, the best donuts, and we can talk about that in another segment, right? Whatever is their passion, I want them to be able to do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?
SPEAKER_03Yes, that's my vision for the world.
SPEAKER_00It's a good vision.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the rest of this community, we all need to have this vision and we all need to be working for that.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, that takes us to kind of the future and what Columbus needs to do next. Uh what is your call to action for employers in Central Ohio who want to be part of the solution? And what does it look like when a company genuinely commits to workforce equity?
SPEAKER_03Wow, that is a big question.
SPEAKER_02That's deep.
SPEAKER_03Um, it is deep. I I think there are a lot of employees in this community who want to do that. And you know, the economy is primarily not made up of the members of the partnership. The economy is primarily made up of small to mid-sized businesses.
SPEAKER_00As the Columbus Partnership.
SPEAKER_03Yes, as the Columbus Partnership, right? They those are all bigger companies. Um, but the backbone, all those companies are important. I'm not saying they're not, but the majority of companies, the majority of members of the chamber, if you would talk to Derek Clay, they're the small to mid-level companies. And um they just don't know how to do it. Um, sometimes they stumble on how to do it. There was a a company who came to us and their turnover was so great, and it turned out it was because, not because they weren't paying a it wasn't the best, but it was a decent higher entry-level wage, at least in relatively. What they didn't understand is that nobody got leave until they'd been there for 90 days to six months, and then they got like a day or two. And what was happening is people would have a sick child who had to stay home. And they were like, Well, I don't have any leave, so I guess I'm gonna have to quit. Right? Yeah, and so they were like, wait a minute, all we have to do is dump, you know, three or four days on someone uh that they can use in those first 90 days.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, nice.
SPEAKER_03Right? And all right, simple solutions. And um, that's what we're here to do too. I mean, we're here to help the job seeker, but we're here for those employers uh to help them figure out how the money they're investing in people, how could it best be used? And is that in wages and wage increases? And uh, and if it's not, what are other ways that we can help to make that job a higher quality job? And sometimes, you know, employers, there are employers I know who know they're training people to go to a job with somebody else, but you know what, you can get a pretty good reputation that way too. So let's talk about how you do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03And retain them for a while.
SPEAKER_00So you know, my last question. You've been doing this work since 2016 in this role, and over 20 years before that in economic and community development. What gives you optimism about Central Ohio right now?
SPEAKER_03Well, I'll tell you, I must be optimistic because I've never held a job slung ever.
SPEAKER_00That's great.
SPEAKER_0310 years. This is like way past the longest I've ever held a job.
SPEAKER_00You consider yourself an eternal optimist?
SPEAKER_03I do. I when um it's funny, so uh I got some other recognition and I had to stand write a letter that or write a word that describes me, and I put enthusiastic because um that optimism and enthusiasm is what drives me every day because I do believe we can do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I do believe Central Ohio can do it.
SPEAKER_00If we can't do it, who can, right?
SPEAKER_03And um, you know, the fact that we we have made investments, uh, the fact that we've been willing to try things, um, you know, I think even the fact that we've tried things and said, okay, this isn't gonna work, we need to pivot. Those are the things that give me a lot of optimism. Those are the things that keep me from retiring when I'm probably getting close to doing that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because I just really believe I will not leave this world before I see some some of this needle moved. I really do believe that. It may not be me.
SPEAKER_00I believe it too. So well, Lisa, thank you. Uh thank you for your leadership, your candor, and for the work that you and your team do every day to make Central Ohio's workforce ecosystem stronger and more equitable. Uh, what Lisa has helped us see today is that the workforce challenge in Central Ohio isn't about a shortage of hardworking people. It's also not a shortage of jobs. It's about a system where wages haven't kept up with costs, pathways to better jobs aren't always visible or accessible, and the decisions we make today about training, education, and child development will shape the workforce for tomorrow. And to everybody listening, this conversation sparked something. Whether you're a job seeker, an employer, a policymaker, or just a neighbor who cares about this city. Go to aspireworkforce.org. That's Aspire with a Y, not an I.
SPEAKER_03We aspire, but we're cool about it.
SPEAKER_00That's right. I love it. You can also go to LiveUnited CentralOhio.org to see how United Way is working alongside Aspire and dozens of other partners to build a Franklin County where everybody has a real shot. And until next time, remember there's not a problem Columbus can't fix. Amen, brother.