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HERE IN PONCA CITY....so much happened this week, staff is going to just hit the highlights and let the pictures tell the story. MJ&H Fabrications had their Ribbon Cutting (just to make it official that they are growing employment and here to stay) and had a fabulous turnout to congratulation them and tour the building. The Small Business Summit happened on Tuesday; Ponca City Leadership had their graduation last night and PCDA staff were everywhere this week taking pictures, supporting small business and encouraging workforce/employer alignment. Whew. Now, staff has to get ready for the regularly scheduled PCDA Board of Trustees meeting next week.
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MJ& H Fabrications Ribbon Cutting
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Small Business Summit featuring Becky McCray
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Crowd at the MJ&H Fabrications Ribbon Cutting
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This year's Ponca CIty Leadership Graduates
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GET YOUR TICKETS FAST
…that’s right., the May meeting of the PCDA Board of Trustees is next Thursday, May 11th at 7:30 a.m. Okay, so you don’t need tickets, reservations, invitation, winks, nods, whatever since it’s open to the public. With an agenda filled with juicy items such as accepting the completion of a parking lot project, finalizing a street extension, considering a new hanger roof and, wait for it, the tense yet exciting consideration on approving the minutes from last month’s meeting, the live streaming simply will not catch the excitement. Okay, so it’s not live streamed, which is too bad since the agenda will also feature a presentation by the winner of the small business competition last month as well as the rolling out of the draft budget. This month’s special free parking!
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MJ&H Fabrications and Pioneer Technology Center are hosting a "Weld For Work" competition on May 9th and 10th at Pioneer Tech. This two day competition is for the PTech graduating class of welders and MJ&H will hire the top three welders.
Talk about recruiting workforce! This is the kind of out of the box thinking PCDA staff love to see from our local employers. Good job MJ&H Fabrications and Pioneer Technology Welding Program.
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NOT TOO CLOSE TO HOME???...PCDA gets asked a lot if there are “big announcements coming.” You’ve heard us mention that economic growth doesn’t work that way, that economic growth happens one job at a time, quietly, typically within existing companies. For that matter, PCDA does not make announcements, companies do. It’s their business after all. Economic growth, that is to say the addition of jobs (net job growth v. net job loss) did happen, again, in Ponca City this week but it’s not the type of thing that will end up in the press. There was a lot of other economic news that did hit the press, however, that could impact Ponca City. Probably the biggest thing was the Puerto Rican bankruptcy. This hits bond markets, retirement funds, government borrowing, etc. and could mean less money available for the type of expansions that happened, quietly, in Ponca City this week. Then there is the question of health care. Anyone have a crystal ball on how that will turn out and impact an important industry in Ponca City? You know all about oil dropping below $45 a barrel. We’re not as vulnerable to that as we used to be but tell that to the local companies that make their living related to the oil patch. So locally, it was a good week due to the net job growth but the economic ripples on the horizon (Puerto Rico, if and how health care is addressed, oil) give PCDA pause.
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If you ask an economist what's driven economic growth, it's been major advances in things that mattered - the mechanization of farming, mass manufacturing, things like that. The problem is, our society is not organized around doing that.
- Larry Page
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BETTER THAN AVERAGE….. Oklahoma’s average manufacturing salary is $62,437. In Ponca City we have 31 major manufacturers with over 3100 industry jobs with the average wage of $23.47/hour, and most jobs here do not require a bachelor’s degree or higher. In fact, one major employer with over 300 jobs require only 2 positions with in their company to have a bachelors degree. This is not to say that training after high school isn’t important. Nationally, people with a sub high school or high school diploma education do not even participate in our labor pool, and that is before we even talk about their percentage of the unemployment rates. For every professional degree (masters or higher) there are 2 degrees needed at a bachelors level and 7 with skilled trades (certificate, apprenticeship, associates degree, etc.) Let’s change our thinking in America from: college for all, to: realizing that a “good” job may not require the classroom based learning we have been pushing our students towards.
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May 9 & 10: Weld for Work at Pioneer Technology Center
MJ&H Fab and PTech Welding Competition
Wed, May 24: Spears School of Business Program at the UC
"Mentoring and Enhancing Employee Performance"
Monday, May 29: PCDA office Closed for Memorial Day.
Friday, June 2: Ponca Main Street Battle of the Burger
See flyer below for more info.
City Central Building is now leasing. Call Lori Henderson at 580-765-7070.
Eastman Building has two floors of customizable space.
Call Eastin Properties 580-761-5610
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