by Dr. Isabel Warner
From September 4-6th, Dr. Isabel Warner, MOST’s Education & Workforce Policy Fellow attended the Governor’s Conference on Economic Development in St. Louis.
The conference aims to connect leaders in private industry and public service as they convene to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing Missouri. At the conference, Dr. Warner met economic development professionals, connected with legislators from across the state, and heard exciting new ideas from non-profits, private industry, and educational professionals.
In her own words:
“I was really excited to see transportation and housing front of mind at this conference – it’s something we heard about a lot during our state tour last year, and something I expect will come up more and more in the legislature.
Two sessions I found particularly useful focused on the partnerships higher education can have with local industry to help train and upskill Missouri’s workforce: one focused on rural advanced manufacturing operations, and one given by St. Louis Community College showcased their success in establishing training pipelines for the most sought-after professionals. There are some really innovative ideas happening especially at the community college level and with both industry and 4-year university partnerships. It’s exciting to see how some public-private partnerships are providing a lot of capital and value for all parties.
Finally, it was neat to see respectful and candid discussions about how both rural and urban areas are facing a lot of the same problems, but that policy solutions need to look different, and there’s no one-size-fits all solution. For instance, when talking about housing and transportation, solutions that work for high density urban centers don’t scope or scale to diffuse rural populations.”
