Long-term partnership mobilizes graduate students to map rural workforce challenges
When Bryan Jones ’23 first sat down to analyze workforce data as a graduate assistant at Virginia Tech’s Center for Economic and Community Engagement (CECE), he joined a partnership dating to 2008.
“Working with the New River/Mount Rogers Workforce Development Board really helped my skills in talking to professionals, gathering data, and bringing that all together for a purpose,” said Jones, who graduated from the School of Public and International Affairs’ 4+1 Master of Urban and Regional Planning accelerated program and now serves as an economic development specialist at CECE.
This transformation of both students and communities lies at the heart of the center’s 16-year-long partnership with the New River/Mount Rogers Workforce Development Board. The board coordinates workforce initiatives to enable economic growth and ensure residents acquire skills for meaningful employment, competitive wages, and career advancement. In the past year alone, the board administered 14 programs with an annual budget exceeding $4.3 million.
The partnership, initiated during the 2008 housing recession, has evolved into a dynamic collaboration addressing workforce challenges. CECE’s support has taken multiple forms: providing data analysis for the board’s successful Appalachian Regional Commission POWER initiative grant, delivering quarterly workforce reports that track industry trends, and offering insights that help the board make informed decisions about workforce development programs.
The significance of the collaboration is clear to Marty Holliday, the board’s executive director.
“Our relationship with Virginia Tech is really important. This kind of analysis of what’s going on around us, in our labor market, and in our communities — we make decisions based on some of that information. It’s also not information that we just keep for ourselves; we post it on our website and we share with our funders and partners at the regional and state level.”
She said she’s had many economic development partners and business partners tell her how important that data is for them. “And we couldn’t provide it without this partnership,” she said.
Holliday brings valuable industry perspective, having served as regional operations manager for ceramic tile manufacturer Florida Tile in Lakeland, Florida, for nearly a decade. After relocating to Floyd, Virginia, in 2000, she joined the workforce board as a program specialist, leveraging her human resources background to address rural workforce challenges, including transportation barriers.
Her collaboration with CECE began after meeting John Provo, the center’s executive director, leading to expanded university partnerships.
New perspectives
The partnership’s first major initiative, launched in 2010, exemplifies CECE’s innovative approach. CREATES (Construction, Retrofitting and Energy-Efficiency Assessment Training and Employment Systems) equipped construction workers with renewable energy sector skills, positioning the region for green energy transformation. More recently, CECE helped the board evaluate its Ready SWVA child care program.
But it’s the quarterly workforce reports, initiated in 2016, that are the cornerstone of this collaboration, providing detailed analysis of government, manufacturing, retail trade, and health care sectors. These reports deliver actionable intelligence about regional employment trends while also training graduate students.
Jones said one of the reports focused on work-based learning helped provide a foundation for the work he would later do as an economic development specialist. “We pulled economic data and talked to relevant parties, combining both quantitative and qualitative research to create a fuller picture for the client,” he said.
Economic development specialist Ashley Posthumus said one of the great things about Holliday is that she loves to work with students. “She’s always open to new and innovative ideas, which is great to have in a client and a partner.”
Over the years, work with the board is routinely one of the first projects graduate assistants take on.
“The graduate students bring something to the table that I think is unique. Since they’re not in the industry, they frequently look at things slightly differently. It’s interesting for me when I get to see their thoughts because it shows someone else’s perspective of the information that might not have been my own,” Holliday said.
A flexible future
Now, CECE is taking one step further, working on developing an online dashboard that will allow data to be shared widely.
“I value the center’s willingness to take almost any idea we’ve pushed their way and find a way to make it work,” Holliday said. “There aren't many opportunities that you have where you can partner with an organization that can do a variety of tasks in a variety of ways and allows us to choose the information we want to provide to our area. I think that flexibility is incredible in this partnership.”
The center is also working with the board on a strategic plan to guide it without Holliday at the helm — she plans to retire in early 2025.
“Getting that outside look from a third party is important, especially for a strategic plan. By having Virginia Tech lead some of these discussions and share information with us, it provides credibility,” Holliday said.
Makenzie Mann, a master’s student in urban and regional planning, said participating in the planning session gave her invaluable exposure to real-world consulting and strategic thinking.
“Seeing how academic research can directly inform organizational decision-making was a transformative experience that has shaped my understanding of economic development work,” she said.
