Talent

Economic research show a strong link between a region's level of research and development spending and its economic prosperity. Northeast Ohio lags behind the rest of the nation in research spending. (If we matched the national average, our region would add about 11,000 jobs.) That is why it is so encouraging to see a large group of entities unite to address the issue in the Akron area.

Here's the latest on the Akron Academic Health Center project from a story published in today's Akron Beacon Journal written by Cheryl Powell:

The Akron area's major hospitals, university and medical school are taking another step toward joining forces for research and education.

The University of Akron Foundation is securing $881,200 in public and private funds to create a business plan to develop a regional partnership known as the Akron Academic Health Center.

Summit County and Akron are being asked to contribute $50,000 each toward the plan. County Council could vote on the proposal as early as Monday.

County Executive Russ Pry said the taxpayer investment is worthwhile because it could lead to a $300 million project in Akron.

The academic health center concept calls for UA to team up with Summa Health System, Akron General Medical Center, Akron Children's Hospital and the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy to boost medical research and education in the region and ultimately improve health services, Summa spokesman Mike Bernstein said on behalf of the five partners.

Last week, officials from Mansfield visited Kalamazoo, Mich., to learn more about how that community is working to attract growing companies and retain young talent by offering free college tuition to all residents.

The two-year-old program, known as the Kalamazoo Promise,  is generating a lot of interest in Northeast Ohio -- officials in Akron, the Mahoning Valley and elsewhere are pursuing different options to use free tuition as an economic development vehicle.

You can read more about what the Mansfield folks learned in this story from the Mansfield News Journal. Here's a key quote:

"I think they have a remarkable program going, and the thing that makes it work is great leadership, not only from the donors but all the educational people involved," said Bob Zettler, a work force consultant for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services at North Central State College.

"I don't know how likely it's going to be to bring that program here, but a community that has a lot of similar issues to ours found a way to help themselves, and I think we could, too."

You can read more about similar efforts in Northeast Ohio here.

Team NEO and other partners in the Cleveland Plus Marketing Alliance have launched a new web site to help persuade potential employees why they should consider moving to the region.

The web site can be found at ClevelandPlusLiving.com.

If your company needs any assistance at all to recruit talent to the region, consider linking to the site and directing potential employees to the site so they can see the many pluses of living here.

CrainsCleveland.com reports today that the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are collaborating with partners at Cuyahoga Community College to use a $2.5 million grant to train as many as 900 people for jobs in health care.

The partners of Advance Northeast Ohio have identified health care as one of the key sectors where the region needs to do more to prepare, attract and retain talent. This new effort joins several other efforts to improve health care talent development, including NEO Health Force in the Mahoning Valley, a collaboration in Stark and surrounding counties and the Northeast Ohio Nursing Initiative. Several of the region's hospitals also are working together to shape a talent development program.

All of these efforts coincide with the state's new push for a more demand-driven talent development system. Hopefully, there'll be similar collaborations announced soon targeting other key industries, including manufacturing and information technology.

Recently we highlighted four exciting new efforts to promote science, technology, engineering and math education (STEM) in the region.

These programs are vital because as a new report from Education Week demonstrates the state of Ohio is toward the back of the class in this subject. Ohio's grade was a meager C. The national average was C+.

The good news is the state received a B- in its capacity to use technology. However, Ohio only rated a D+ in how technology is actually used.

One way Northeast Ohio schools could increase their use of technology would be adopting the OneClassroom technology being deployed throughout the region by OneCommunity.