Businesses depend on attracting the right people for the right positions to succeed, and our local business leaders have told the City of Carlsbad that filling their talent needs is one of their biggest challenges. Despite being home to a large population of skilled and semi-skilled workers, the San Diego region generally, and Carlsbad specifically, face a shortage of talent, especially in high-tech industries.
The City of Carlsbad has embarked on a mission to attract quality educational programs that can develop talent to fill the long-term needs of local and regional businesses.
The city is currently pursuing two initiatives in this regard:
• Providing a home for MiraCosta College's Technology Career Institute, an advanced machinist program, other certificate training programs and the north county Small Business Development Center.
• Attracting an institution of higher learning to Carlsbad that will offer graduate courses in engineering and other highly specialized technical fields.
MiraCosta College received a $2.75 million grant last year from the U.S. Department of Labor to train future machinists to meet industry's growing need for skilled machine operators and programmers. MiraCosta offers a full-time 12-week program that instructs students how to use precision machines that fabricate, modify and repair mechanical instruments, and is developing additional programs related to the growing advanced manufacturing industry. The City and MiraCosta are discussing moving the program to a vacant building on Las Palmas Drive.
The city's other endeavor, the Carlsbad Higher Education Initiative, is just as strategic but is more complex. Attracting the right institution with programs that align with the city and region's business needs is not something that happens overnight.
So the city has hired a team of consultants experienced in the higher-education landscape, K. Backus & Associates and Appleseed, who helped Cornell University in its successful pursuit to locate an applied science and engineering campus in New York City.
City representatives have attended higher-education conferences to promote the city's assets, and not just the sun and the beach. The city is home to innovative businesses that have registered more than 2,000 patents and are hungry for talent, and that offer good pay and benefits in intellectually stimulating environments.
The city just issued a Request for Expressions of Interest, which asks institutions with serious interest to submit their ideas for a future higher-education campus in Carlsbad.
The city is also encouraging the use of a city-owned 128,846 square-foot building at El Camino Real and Faraday Avenue as a higher education or research facility. This building, the former Farmers Insurance building, sits on 13.5 acres in a central location. The city stresses, however, that this idea is not about a building, but about filling a workforce need for programmers, engineers and other skilled professionals right here in Carlsbad.
And while San Diego already has wonderful institutions of higher learning,the University of California San Diego, with San Diego State University, California State University San Marcos, University of San Diego and Point Loma Nazarene University, to name a few, the demand for talent is greater than the supply, and their fields of study don't always match up with what our local businesses are seeking.
One only need look to the synergy between Stanford University and Silicon Valley to see how an institution of higher learning can interact with a local business cluster to raise the knowledge bar exponentially. While such synergy may be many years in the making, the City of Carlsbad is taking an active role in addressing this challenge, rather than passively wait for things to change.
The City of Carlsbad has embarked on a mission to attract quality educational programs that can develop talent to fill the long-term needs of local and regional businesses.
The city is currently pursuing two initiatives in this regard:
• Providing a home for MiraCosta College's Technology Career Institute, an advanced machinist program, other certificate training programs and the north county Small Business Development Center.
• Attracting an institution of higher learning to Carlsbad that will offer graduate courses in engineering and other highly specialized technical fields.
MiraCosta College received a $2.75 million grant last year from the U.S. Department of Labor to train future machinists to meet industry's growing need for skilled machine operators and programmers. MiraCosta offers a full-time 12-week program that instructs students how to use precision machines that fabricate, modify and repair mechanical instruments, and is developing additional programs related to the growing advanced manufacturing industry. The City and MiraCosta are discussing moving the program to a vacant building on Las Palmas Drive.
The city's other endeavor, the Carlsbad Higher Education Initiative, is just as strategic but is more complex. Attracting the right institution with programs that align with the city and region's business needs is not something that happens overnight.
So the city has hired a team of consultants experienced in the higher-education landscape, K. Backus & Associates and Appleseed, who helped Cornell University in its successful pursuit to locate an applied science and engineering campus in New York City.
City representatives have attended higher-education conferences to promote the city's assets, and not just the sun and the beach. The city is home to innovative businesses that have registered more than 2,000 patents and are hungry for talent, and that offer good pay and benefits in intellectually stimulating environments.
The city just issued a Request for Expressions of Interest, which asks institutions with serious interest to submit their ideas for a future higher-education campus in Carlsbad.
The city is also encouraging the use of a city-owned 128,846 square-foot building at El Camino Real and Faraday Avenue as a higher education or research facility. This building, the former Farmers Insurance building, sits on 13.5 acres in a central location. The city stresses, however, that this idea is not about a building, but about filling a workforce need for programmers, engineers and other skilled professionals right here in Carlsbad.
And while San Diego already has wonderful institutions of higher learning,the University of California San Diego, with San Diego State University, California State University San Marcos, University of San Diego and Point Loma Nazarene University, to name a few, the demand for talent is greater than the supply, and their fields of study don't always match up with what our local businesses are seeking.
One only need look to the synergy between Stanford University and Silicon Valley to see how an institution of higher learning can interact with a local business cluster to raise the knowledge bar exponentially. While such synergy may be many years in the making, the City of Carlsbad is taking an active role in addressing this challenge, rather than passively wait for things to change.