YMVC Update to the Region - October 17, 2022 - Volume I, Number 4 |
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YUMA COUNTY AGRICULTURE LEADER RECOGNIZED FOR ADVANCING HIGH TECH IN THE GREATER YUMA REGION |
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Welcome to YMVC's new outreach bulletin, focused on planned steps to increase high-tech education access and success to support existing and future high-tech industry and emerging best practices.
Each article has been selected to support the Ten Recommendations that were unanimously adopted by the YMVC Board of Directors following the completion of our data-driven 3rd party-sourced Strategic Assessment and Market Analysis that formed our Strategic Plan Framework. This work was done in collaboration with Greater Yuma Economic Development Corporation.
Our regional focus includes collaboration in Yuma and Imperial Counties as well as Northern Sonora and Baja Norte, Mexico.
We look forward to engaging industry, education, students, parents, and all other stakeholders as we advance to Phase 3 of our project.
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We are on a mission.
We are a collaborative organization, bridging higher education, industry, and prospective talent to provide the means to achieve the skilled careers of today and the future.
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YMVC PREPARES TO ADVANCE TO
PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION STAGE
Having received feedback and insight of over 250 area members of industry, education, elected officials, young professionals and other stakeholders, YMVC is preparing to present the results of the data-driven Strategic Plan Framework in public meetings and through multi-media outreach.
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Updates From High-Tech Industry
As the result of data and best practices, YMVC has pivoted to become both an industry-faced and tech workforce development organization seeking to advance a regional pipeline of skilled talent to support both existing and future tech industry in the Greater Yuma Region. Find news here about high-tech industry success both in our region and beyond.
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Supply chain boom: the impact of tech business development ripples far beyond the primary business |
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Phoenix Business Journal - Arizona is doing a phenomenal job growing the semiconductor business. That's not only good for the primary businesses, it is great for job creation as the list of suppliers to those primary manufacturers grows to meet demand.
Not long after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. announced its decision to build a $12 billion factory in Phoenix, real estate firms started buying up hundreds of acres in the nearby Deer Valley submarket, which is home to one of the largest job corridors in Phoenix and spans more than 50 square miles.
Growing our workforce's tech skills and supporting existing industry can help grow supply chain and logistics demand in the Greater Yuma Region.
Tech workforce and industry growth can also increase demand for our airport and even help attract additional commercial flight service to our region. For example, the 914-acre Phoenix Deer Valley Airport, a reliever to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and one of the busiest general aviation airports in the U.S., also has one fixed based operator, Cutter Aviation, and more than 1,000 aircraft. It was built in the 1960s and is used for private aviation.
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Improving the Workforce Attraction
and Retention Ecosystem
The data-driven Strategic Plan Framework, built from the feedback of over 250 stakeholders and in consideration of best practices, calls for improving the economic ecosystem with amenities that will support workforce retention and attraction. This space includes ideas that support those objectives.
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Communities and companies invest to attract and retain skilled workers |
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Wall Street Journal - With thanks to Deidre Schuman at Gowan Company who passed this along, here is inspiring information about a rural town investing in itself in order to assist industry attracting and retaining employees.
Pella Corp. has offices and manufacturing plants in more than 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada but one of the toughest jobs, say executives at this closely held maker of windows and doors, is convincing workers to locate here in its hometown, a rural city of about 10,000 residents 45 miles southeast of Des Moines.
The company and its controlling shareholders—members of the founding Kuyper family and its descendants—set out to change that. They have spent tens of millions of dollars in the past three years on housing, child-care centers, restaurants and an indoor entertainment center, among other things, to retain and attract new workers. More spending is on the way.
“We just didn’t have the amenities that people we were trying to recruit would expect,” says Chief Executive Tim Yaggi, noting that the manufacturer competes with major cities for talent.
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News from Higher Education
Hiigher education Innovation is happening in our regional community colleges and universities. Find news here--both regional and beyond.
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ASU's President seeks to redesign higher education to prepare for the future |
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World Government Summit - It certainly can be dangerous when leaders from higher education wade into politics--too often it can be self-serving--but as the long-time leader of ASU, who for over 20 years has built the university into a juggernaut of higher education that for eight consecutive years has been lauded as the #1 most innovative school in America by US News and World Report--he has the credibility that he's just not launching a marketing campaign.
Crow recently provided an op-ed at the World Government Summit.
Crow's advocacy for a fundamental shift in how we support social progress, including how we design organizations to be more accessible, flexible, resilient, and accountable to the communities they serve provides a north star that merges education with the interests of students and tech industries. It certainly inspires a marker for YMVC as Phase 3 rolls out and into fruition.
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YMVC Director and Board Vice Chair Presents Farmer of the Year Award to Inspirational Agriculture Leader |
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Yuma County Farm Bureau - Mark Smith, President of Smith Farms, Co., was recently named Farmer of the Year by the Yuma County Farm Bureau for leading efforts to bring broadband to underserved areas in Yuma County,.
YMVC's Paul Brierley, who presented the award, explained that Smith "grabbed" onto broadband about five years ago when he noticed that Yuma was not getting broadband speeds customers were paying for.
Smith's leadership is inspirational, and the roll out of higher speed broadband in Yuma County will help accelerate the proliferation of high tech agriculture, which is also a priority of YMVC as we move into Phase 3.
Thank you for leading this crucial economic development initiative, Mark!
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Do you know someone that would be interested in this bulletin? Please forward it to a friend! |
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Yuma Multiversity Campus Corp.
370 South Main Street
Yuma, Arizona 85364
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