Career Partners, Inc., Recognized as Model in Workforce Development

Wednesday, December 1st 1999, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TulsaÂ¹s tightening job market is certainly good news for job seekers, but employers are increasingly hard pressed to find and retain quality employees. The labor shortage is expected to become even more acute in the
wake of recent business expansion and relocation announcements.

Through its workforce development programs, the ChamberÂ¹s Career Partners, Inc. (CPI) is doing its part to alleviate employers' headaches. IndEx, Telecommunications 2000 and other cutting edge programs operating under the ChamberÂ¹s umbrella gained national attention last spring when CPI was
selected from a pool of more than 200 organizations by the School-to-Work
Intermediary Project as one of 24 organizations to receive funding and
technical assistance for program development.

"1999 will be remembered as a banner year in terms of workforce development grants," said Jeff Walderich, Executive Director of Career Partners. "Altogether, weÂ¹ve received over $2 million in cash and in-kind contributions this year, and all of it gets invested in training people to become productive members of our communityÂ¹s workforce," he said.

Career PartnersÂ¹ leadership in shaping the future of school-to-work programs was in evidence this fall at the Intermediary Project Institute in Kansas City, a joint project of the National School to Work Office, the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, the National Alliance for Business and Jobs for the Future. CPI was selected as one of five lead sites nationwide and is expected to provide valuable input into designing school-to-work programs to be implemented across the country. "The institute gave us an opportunity to work with our counterparts to do some serious action planning and create a sustainable intermediary structure," said Walderich. "We left Kansas City confident that the programs
weÂ¹ve built here in Tulsa can serve as models for communities elsewhere that are facing tight labor markets."

For more information on CPIÂ¹s workforce development initiatives, call Jeff
Walderich at 560-0280 or email jeffwalderich@tulsachamber.com.