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Generating Veteran Career Pathways through Apprenticeships and Enhanced Business Services

Integrated Service Programs PLG Call #2

Transcript byNoble Transcription Services

Murrieta, CA

OPERATOR: This meeting is now being recorded.

WENDY RUSSELL: OK. Good afternoon. My name is Wendy Russell from Maher & Maher, and I will be your facilitator for today's conversation. Welcome to the second call in a series on integrated services programs. Today we are exploring generating veteran career pathways through apprenticeships and enhanced business services. We are very pleased that our speakers for today's call are Pam Howze, who is the executive director of workforce-based learning business and veteran services from the North Carolina Division of Workforce Solutions, and Kathryn Castelloes – Kathryn, I blew it.

KATHRYN CASTELLOES: Castelloes. That's OK. Castelloes.

MS. RUSSELL: Castelloes – sorry – who is the apprenticeship director at North Carolina Department of Commerce for the North Carolina Division of Workforce Solutions. And they – I – we've reached out to them because they've developed collaborative strategies to engage employers, expand, enrich apprenticeship opportunities with a very specific focus on generating career pathways for enlisted and army veterans. So I think it will be a very interesting call.

Just a little bit of background. The WIOA peer learning groups are designed to be collaborative learning communities that involve all of us working together in topical groups to really drill down and focus on real-world strategies for implementing WIOA, sharing promising practices, and find solutions to our common challenges. These are discussion calls, and your active participation is critical to making it work. We are recording this call, and it will be available for download from the WorkforceGPS ION site. So if you're listening in but after a very animated conversation you say, gee, I wish so-and-so had heard this conversation, you're able to share it.

At present all participants are muted, and we'll hear from – we'll be responding to a couple of questions from Pam and Kathryn, but then we will also stop and ask you to ask questions, share your experiences, or comment on something you've heard. So we need you to be an active listener and an active participant. There are about 75 people that have registered for this call. So we know it's a high-interest topic. So let's get started.

Pam, could you please give us some background information about the Division for Workforce Solutions in North Carolina and how you got involved in this work?

PAM HOWZE: So the Division of Workforce Solutions is actually a division of our North Carolina Department of Commerce. North Carolina is very diverse geographically. So we have the western part of the state we have the Blue Ridge Mountains and the eastern part of the state we have the Outer Banks and we have everything in between. So very, very big state; about 100 counties in the state.

Researching Your Customers to Better Understand Their Needs and Improve Outcomes - CCD PLG Call #2Tuesday, June 28, 2016 of 20

North Carolina is divided up into eight prosperity zones. That is really the way we do our division work and the way our economic developers work. We are focused very much on regionalism and not just local counties. There are about 100 counties in North Carolina.

We have a large military presence in North Carolina. We have one of the largest bases in Fayetteville. That's Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne. We also have Camp Lejeune, the Marine base, Seymour Johnson Airforce Base, and Perry Point. So we've got a very big military presence. The military is the second largest industry in – the second largest economic impact in North Carolina.

We think we have a great business climate. We have a good tax base. Our legislature is paying attention to our employers and their needs across the state. We have a very educated workforce, very credentialed workforce. We are, however, suffering like the rest of the state in that we do tend to have a lot of skills gap with our more higher technical jobs like CNC machining and tool and dye makers, robotics, those kind of things. So we are suffering from somewhat of a gap there.

Our division is pretty big. About 400 people work in our system to include our Anything Works Career Centers, which is our American Job Centers and, like I said before, 100 counties, eight prosperity zones really focused on regionalism in the state. In the last two years we've done some significant things within our division. The Department of Labor used to be the home of our apprenticeship program, and our secretary of commerce was really integral in getting that group of the apprenticeship group from the Department of Labor over Department of Commerce because we felt like it was a much better fit for workforce solutions to have the apprenticeship group with us in the division and actually to become an integrated service partner. Several things precipitated that move. Apprenticeship had become a hot word on the national level. It's certainly a hot word in our state and has been for the last three years, and so we felt like they would be a better partner to work with other services.

I will tell you that I came into this job from the private sector, and coming into this job it was very important to me that we become an integrated service delivery team and not really bug our employers with multiple visits from multiple programs and multiple services because that was really a priority for me to get us integrated. So I'm responsible for three of our statewide programs, the apprenticeship program, the veterans' employment and training services, and business services through our workforce boards. So I took responsibility for those three groups when I came on board 18 months ago, and we really have worked very hard over the last year and a half to work together and learn how to be partners together. So there are three directors that are on my team. Kathryn is – Castelloes is on the call. Archie Barrow is our veterans' employment and training services director, and Darrell Kain is our new director of business services coming to us from the outside.

We have some exciting things that are happening in North Carolina. Our general assembly just passed a couple of bills that are really very powerful in terms of growing our apprenticeship program across the state. They added an additional half a million dollars to the apprenticeship budget, and that was big news. But one of the things we're most excited about was they passed free community college tuition for all youth apprentices who enter apprenticeship in high school


while they are using the community college for their related instruction. So much better than a tax credit or a one-time-and-done kind of incentive for our employers. So we're super excited.

The third piece of legislation they passed was for an apprenticeship program for disabled veterans in the cybersecurity space. They gave us another half a million dollars to grow that program through our state Department of IT. So we are putting together a framework right now to really build that out and how we're going to attract some of our disabled veterans into that cybersecurity apprenticeship program. So really exciting things that are happening in North Carolina.

MS. RUSSELL: I would certainly agree with that, Pam, and I feel like we could almost have a complete other call about how you were able to forge that legislation through the legislative process. But I think probably a big part of that was the groundwork that you've laid through the Division of Workforce Solutions because you've created a framework for those programs to then have a home.

MS. HOWZE: Right.

MS. RUSSELL: Let's launch into our first discussion question, which kind of lays out the how to. What steps did you take to integrate your key programs for improved service delivery? And, Pam, I'm going to ask you to expand on some specific steps, any outreach. It's one thing to say you brought three programs together, but what were – how did you actually go about doing that because I know folks on the call are probably either contemplating that or are struggling through it right now.

MS. HOWZE: So the first thing we did last year was we actually moved the apprenticeship consultant into either an office at a career center or a community college customized training office. So we felt like the first thing was they needed to be together in their daily work. They needed to be having light conversations about the companies they were serving. They needed to be having light conversations about solutions that their employers were presenting to them. So last July our complete staff across the state in the apprenticeship team relocated to a career center. The other good news there is the vet staff was already sitting in the career center, and we felt like that would be another integration point if the apprenticeship consultants were sitting with the veteran services folks, that they could also have additional conversations about veteran apprenticeship.

The next thing we did was we physically located all of my team to the same hall. So all three directors and their local folks that are in our Raleigh office actually sit on the same hall. So we talk to each other every day. We can pop in each other's offices to have a conversation. We also started a bi-weekly leadership directors' meeting with me and the three directors to really talk about what's going on in each of those directors' space and to really strategize and collaborate on how we could come together and help each other with those programs. So we've done a lot of things to really kind of force the geography issue so that people really get used to talking to each other and speaking each other's language.


Last year we did a huge round of training with our veteran staff. We did four sessions across the state where we brought in our career center managers, our workforce board directors, and our business services representatives, and we trained them on the veteran program guidelines for our veteran staff. Had a great opportunity for Q&A, how we could best utilize that staff in the career centers and in our employer outreach. This year we've actually had our apprenticeship consultant go to every career center in their prosperity zone and do a presentation on apprenticeship and try to teach them to learn to speak the language of apprenticeship.

We have also partnered with our community college system. We have an excellent college system in North Carolina, 58 colleges. We have a program in North Carolina that's funded by our legislature called the Customized Training Program, and that training is delivered through the community college system. We had all of our apprenticeship consultants go through a regional meeting of these community college customized training folks and making another presentation on apprenticeship to really start having that open dialogue about, if you're with an employer and you hear certain things or they're saying certain words, that might be a great opportunity to pull in some apprenticeship expertise. So a lot of things going on in that space in the last year to really get things moving along.

We also did an apprenticeship training program for our business services rep, and those are the reps that do employer outreach through our workforce boards. And then to really educate our business services folks on what was going on in their own local region with apprenticeship, what employers were planning in that space, what employers were saying they might be interested in those things.

We are using a model in North Carolina that I don't think anybody else is using for apprenticeship, but we're using a public-private sector model where we will have five to seven events, maybe – (inaudible) – come together with the local community college, the local high school, career technical education folks, our workforce boards and really put together an integrated solution for apprenticeship training. We currently have 11 of those groups across the state right now with about five more coming online in the next six months. So we're doing a lot of really innovative and creative things in that space.

MS. RUSSELL: Definitely. And the word that I kept hearing over and over was training and what I would call cross-pollination, in other words, each program learning and understanding the other's program and how they fit together and how you complement each other.

Kathryn, could you – I mean, Pam has given us sort of the high-level view. Could you give us some explicit examples of how some of these programs are playing out, how they're working, who you are serving?

MS. CASTELLOES: Yes. Absolutely. Be happy to. We've got a lot of good things, a lot of good examples from just what Pam was telling you, but in the interest of time I'm just going to give you a couple of them. For one, we have at Camp Lejeune we have an employer that is going on site and doing the veterans in pipefitting training, the VIP, and we have it registered as a pre-apprenticeship. So as soon as they get through with that – and this is while they're still in active duty.


So they're still being able to be active duty and in the veterans in pipefitting, and as soon as that is completed, they transition on into work with an actual employer and continue their training with a registered apprenticeship. That has been very successful, and we've got lots of good things happening from that.

We also, which is kind of unique for our state, is we actually have a registered apprenticeship with Fort Bragg for their active duty service people. We have, oh, gee, over 70 different occupations, and they all match with the MOSs that they have on base. So when they complete that training that they have there at Fort Bragg, they receive an additional credential from us for their journeyman certification in that occupation, and they don't get their raises until they get the journeyman certificate. So you can bet when it comes time to completion, if they haven't received it yet, they're calling wanting to know where their certificate is. But that's rather unique for us, and we have – right now, we have around 1,000 apprentices at Fort Bragg.

MS. RUSSELL: Wow. OK. So now, this is a chance for our folks that have been listening in. You've heard a lot of great information, both from the statewide perspective drilled down a little bit in terms of how they were able to bring these three programs together and then some specific examples. So do you have a question or comment for Pam or Kathryn based on what you've just heard? You can press *6 to unmute yourself, and please introduce yourselves and where you're from and pose your question or comment. So do I have anybody? *6.

Well, while people are working up the courage, I had a question. With all of your work, Pam and Kathryn, with apprenticeships, I know that here at the Department of Labor they have done a lot of work from the apprenticeship office. I wondered if you'd been able to access any of those resources or taken advantage. I know they've had webinars and peer learning calls and other things like that. Were you aware of those, and have you been able to access them and utilize them in your training work at the local level?

MS. CASTELLOES: I know we've used a lot of the materials that USDOL has, and we've been using it locally as well. I'm sorry. Pam, were you saying something?

MS. HOWZE: No. I was going to defer to you on that.

MS. CASTELLOES: Oh, OK. That's OK. A lot of the webinars we've been attending and so forth, and as far as actually utilizing, I mean, we've been participating and learning from that and trying to incorporate especially with the employers in developing best practices with that. And one of the kits was developing a pre-apprenticeship model for the construction employers.

So to answer your question, yes. We have been utilizing it by listening and trying to develop models locally here and especially with the industry sectors that they've been having, utilizing logistics, which is our area, and we're working on developing a regional training session for employers and bringing somebody in from that industry sector from another state to speak to employers here as well as working together in partnership with our Office of Apprenticeship and seeing what we can develop in the Charlotte area, especially with the banking industry, which is a little bit out of the norm for apprenticeship. So those are some things we're working on.


Nothing has come to full fruition as far as that goes, but yes. We've been participating and copying some of the ideas and implementing them locally.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. That's excellent. Excellent examples on how to use resources.

Anybody that is listening in, *6 will unmute, and you can introduce yourselves and ask a question or make a comment. All right. I guess you guys – ladies, you explained it all very well.

So let's move on to our second question. If other states or regions wish to follow your lead with services integration, what should they consider? And I know, Pam, when we were first talking about what to cover in this conversation, you mentioned that there were some obstacles that you realized that you need to deal with. And so what were some of those obstacles, and what were some of the ways that you were able to successfully address them and be able to move on?

MS. HOWZE: So interestingly enough, when I first started this initiative, one of the questions I frequently got from program staff was, when we go visit an employer, who takes the lead? Who's responsible to lead the team? Is it apprenticeship? Is it business services? Is it vet staff? And my answer to them has always been it all depends. So I think it's really learning the employer and what the employer needs are and then deciding what kind of integrated solution we're going to bring to the table and who is going to take the lead, depending on what the employer is telling us. I think that's where the training sessions that we did last year were so important.

As all of you know, there's a lot of programmatic language in our programs. We basically have had to teach people how to talk to each other, what certain terminology means, and that's been an ongoing challenge for us. Working together as a team to solve employers' problems, so not thinking that your program is the only solution to that employer's problem but that we could take an integrated solution to the employer with multiple people in one meeting and come away successful.

Another thing that we have done is in October, October 4th and 5th, we are holding our first annual apprenticeship conference in over a decade in the state. And we're inviting not only employers that have apprenticeship programs but employers who've said I might be interested in apprenticeship programs or I might be interested in veterans' apprenticeship programs and bringing them together at that conference, hoping that our existing employers that are using these services can be our best sales force. So there are obstacles, but they're certainly not something that could not be overcome with time and strategy.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. And I know, Kathryn, you had some equally interesting obstacles and solutions as you were dealing with the apprentice – just trying to get the apprenticeship programs up and running. So could you give us some of your lessons learned?

MS. CASTELLOES: Yeah. As far as with getting apprenticeships up and running and working together, being on the same floor I have to say does help everyone being on the same hallway and everything. And when we have businesses – let me give you one quick example of how well that worked. Businesses, we have five in construction that came to us looking for veterans,


looking for people to employ. And so they were – had a particular interest in veterans. So we brought in the veterans representative and as well as the local workforce development board members and so forth and worked together to develop an applicant pool of pre-apprenticeship for them to be able to choose from.

Well, that's what we're working on right now is developing that process and working with the community college to help recruit and get some screening processes done for that and have them to have employers there saying, I am employer XYZ. I can offer you this. I'm looking to hire and pay X amount with this vet assist to offer for you. And then at the end of the pre-apprenticeship we're here to interview, look at your resume, and hire you.

So that absolutely has been a benefit to us, and the employer-to-employer engagement is key. Just as Pam mentioned about our conference coming up, we have found that employers are our best spokesperson. They're our best cheerleaders when it comes to talking to employers who do not have registered apprenticeship.

So we did a summit, if you will, just a little mini-summit that kicked off several employers in the Guilford County and for Guilford County – (inaudible) – area. So getting it off the ground is really hard, but going to those key employers that you have that you work with that know how apprenticeship works, believed in it, have seen it work, those are the ones that you take to employers who do not have a registered apprenticeship. They're the ones that can really get things off the ground.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. So we've got – we've had two very – I think everybody runs into obstacles, and we've had some good examples of how you in North Carolina dealt with these. Again, I'm going to ask for folks listening in and I've got my tech people checking to be sure that you can do *6 to unmute. So I would love for somebody to let me know if you have a question for Pam or Kathryn based on what you've just heard.

OPERATOR: All guests have been muted. You can unmute your line by pressing *6.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. So you should be able to press *6 and –

Q: I have a question.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. Great. Who – can you identify yourself?

Q: Yes. My name is Jay O'Connor. I'm city of Chicago for the state of Illinois with the Illinois Department of Employment Security. And they were talking about legislation that was voted on where half a million was appropriated by the legislature in the state budget, and then there was another half million for disabled vets. What was the third thing that was brought up in the beginning?

MS. HOWZE: It was free – yes. It was free community college tuition for any youth that enters an apprenticeship program in high school, and that tuition would be extended throughout their apprenticeship so that the employer would not have the burden of paying tuition.


Q: Thank you.

MS. HOWZE: You're welcome.

MS. RUSSELL: Hey, thank you, Todd. Is there anybody else with questions? I understand that we had a slight technical glitch, but you should be able to hit *6 and unmute your line and ask Pam or Kathryn a question or make a comment.

Q: Hi. Can you hear me?

MS. RUSSELL: Yes.

Q: Hi. This is Al Wood. I'm with Still Serving Veterans in Birmingham, Alabama. I wanted to ask the ladies – maybe you covered. I didn't get in on the first few minutes – how much resistance did you have? How hard was it to set up the programs there at the bases?

MS. HOWZE: Well, I would –

MS. CASTELLOES: Go ahead, Pam.

MS. HOWZE: We can both – I will say that when I came on board, Kathryn had already established both programs at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg. We do have good relationships with the Transition Readiness Services offices at both of those places and have really great relationships with the team at Camp Lejeune and are holding multiple hiring events at both places as well as we completed two IT sector strategy days, one at Fort Bragg, one at Camp Lejeune this past year to really educate transitioning service members on all of the jobs in the IT sector and all the credentials required to get those jobs.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. Thank you very much. Other questions, since we had you unable to join earlier. We'll take a little bit longer now to be sure we get your questions or comments in. Remember mute – to unmute, *6.

Q: Hello.

MS. RUSSELL: Hi.

Q: Can you hear me?

MS. RUSSELL: Yes.

Q: Hi. I'm Michael Lee. I'm with the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I had a quick question because I was – I missed the first couple minutes as well. What were the partners that you initially brought to the table when establishing this apprenticeship program?


MS. HOWZE: Kathryn?

MS. CASTELLOES: I'm sorry. With establishing the training? The employers that you're talking – is that what you're referring to?

Q: Well, I heard that you said that there were employers involved and that you also said that there – that you guys established something – established a partnership with the actual bases. Were there any other partners involved there in this process?

MS. CASTELLOES: OK. For the – (inaudible) – bases, at Fort Bragg we partnered with Dan with the TAP, the Transition Assistance Program, and they had the veterans' representatives there from the – well, it was the Employment Security Commission then. So those – we partnered with them, but basically it was an apprenticeship program established for the active-duty military personnel, the soldiers on base. So we weren't – (inaudible) – training facility. It wasn't necessarily for inactive. The one at Fort Bragg was for the active duty. So it was Fort Bragg's own apprenticeship program.

Q: Oh, thank you. Thank you.

MS. HOWZE: And then who are you – (inaudible)? Yeah. Their – our employers would be our –

MS. CASTELLOES: Right.

Q: Thank you.

MS. RUSSELL: Well, but you also – early on, if you missed the first part of the call, they were talking about how they brought together their apprenticeship, their business services, and I'm missing the third partner. Pam?

MS. HOWZE: Veterans.

MS. RUSSELL: Veterans.

MS. HOWZE: Veterans' Employment and Training Service.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. So was that the partnership you're referring to, the bigger higher –

Q: Yes.

MS. RUSSELL: Yeah. OK. So it was –

Q: Yes. Thank you.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. So it was – go ahead.


MS. HOWZE: So, Wendy, I wanted to take a minute to talk about another partnership that we have established in North Carolina. Last March our governor announced the North Carolina for Military Employment Initiative. That is an initiative targeted at keeping transitioning veterans in the state of North Carolina in very good jobs. So we have partnered with – I'm on the leadership team.

We partner with the USO, the North Carolina National Guard, the employee services for the guard and reserve, and the governor's office. And we are actually working very hard on hiring events, which are events where veterans will come already pre-matched to employers, and they will interview five employers at a time when they come to the event. Our first event is July the 27th and I'm proud to say we have 96 veterans registered for that event as jobseekers and we have over 215 open positions that we'll be trying to fill that day.

MS. RUSSELL: OK.

Q: Where will you be holding that?

MS. HOWZE: At the Joint Force Headquarters for the North Carolina National Guard in Raleigh.

Q: In Raleigh. OK.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. Are there any other questions? *6, and these are good questions because you're asking for clarification or more information. So keep them coming.

CHRISTINA HERZOG: Hi. This is Christina Herzog. I have a quick question.

MS. RUSSELL: Go ahead, Christina. Thank you.

MS. HERZOG: Terrific. It sounds like you've got some terrific employer engagement there. My question is, how did you go about engaging those employers and getting them interested in hiring vets? You had mentioned involving the governor's office, but I'm wondering if there are some other steps you had taken.

MS. HOWZE: So in weeks prior to the hiring event we held something called a hiring summit and we invited strategic leaders from companies all over the state of North Carolina and we taught them about the value of hiring veterans and the fact that veterans come with all of these key competencies. At those events we had our employers sign pledge cards that they would be interested in learning more about hiring veterans.

At that point we turned the pledge cards over to our vet staff, our local veterans' employer representatives, and we had our vet staff contact the company to really flush out what kind of jobs they wanted to fill and what the job titles were. At that point we then – we opened the event in our NC Works online job center and we had interested veterans jobseekers sign up for that event and then we actually pre-matched them to those jobs so that on July the 27th each jobseeker will have five live interviews with five different employers on the spot.


MS. RUSSELL: OK. Any more questions before we move –

YOLANDA JOHNSON: I have – I'm sorry.

MS. RUSSELL: Go ahead.

MS. JOHNSON: I have – my name is Yolanda Johnson, and I'm in the Atlanta National Processing Center. And my question is, for the time that you had this program up and running and for the individuals that have gone through apprenticeships, do you have statistics on how many of those individual – what percentage of those individuals actually secured permanent positions as a result of the apprenticeships?

MS. HOWZE: If you're referring to one of them in particular, at Camp Lejeune it's almost 100 percent for the Veterans in Pipefitting, and that, I don't have the specific numbers with me. And Fort Bragg, they're – when they transition out from that apprenticeship, they're going all over the United States. So it's really hard to track them to see if they're continuing in that particular occupation or something else. Does that answer your question?

MS. JOHNSON: Yes. Because I'm really – that 100 percent really had a wow factor there.

MS. HOWZE: It is 100 percent because that is through the – (inaudible) –.

MS. JOHNSON: With – and with 100 percent, these are all veterans; right? So –

MS. HOWZE: They're all Marines. Yes.

MS. JOHNSON: Another question.

MS. RUSSELL: Go ahead.

Q: What's – OK. So another question is – and you may have already stated this, and if you have, then I'm sorry, but I'm interested. Now, then you work with more than just military, current military, and veterans now; right? This is kind of blossomed out into your workforce agencies, your state workforce agency? It's a question, not a statement.

MS. HOWZE: We have a very diverse population of apprentices, from 17-year-old youth to incumbent workers to military. So we've got some of all in our apprenticeship program.

Q: So any – with the military, you're doing wonderful work at 100 percent. Are your other programs – or you said it's hard to follow them, but are your other programs – are they operating at maybe 50 percent?

MS. HOWZE: Oh, it's much higher than 50 percent.

MS. HOWZE: Oh, we – (inaudible) –.


Q: The reason I ask – wow, this is – the reason that I ask is because just in history there have been apprenticeship programs offered by labor department, and the individuals would go through these apprenticeship programs but then find it hard to secure a position after they had gone through the apprenticeship programs. And since your program is doing so wonderful and so successful – I guess this is why you're having this meeting – but your program is doing so wonderfully and so successfully, I was wondering if USDOL is looking at your program to maybe try to, for lack of a better term, mimic it throughout other workforce agency, state workforce agencies.

MS. RUSSELL: Well, I can join in here by saying that definitely that's one reason we are highlighting North Carolina and their work on this particular call because we are trying to identify and let more folks, states, regions know about promising practices that their peers are implementing throughout the country. So that's sort of the entire purpose of these peer learning calls. So thank you for noting that that's – that we are accomplishing this purpose.

We have – I'm going to allow one more question now so that we can move on to some of our other questions that we have planned. So do any of you have additional questions or comments? *6.

Q: This is Carl in California.

MS. RUSSELL: Hey, Carl.

Q: Quick question on the 100 percent. Could it be that the 100 percent – are you doing an OJT – excuse me – an apprenticeship for enlisted service members? Is that correct?

MS. HOWZE: Yes.

Q: OK. And the 100 percent is accomplished because the enlisted service members continue to be enlisted?

MS. HOWZE: No. It's because they have been sponsored by an employer that has hired them.

Q: So you're getting 100 percent of your enlisted service members into non-military occupations hired in the general labor market?

MS. HOWZE: Yes. As soon as they exit the military. So there is actually legislation that allowed them to receive active-duty military pay the last six months they're in the military, and those last six months they're in the pre-apprenticeship Veterans in Pipefitting program. When they graduate, they're actually hired. They're hired, and they leave the Marines. They walk right into a job.

Q: That is remarkable. That is very good to hear. Thank you very much. Good clarification.



MS. RUSSELL: OK. Why don't we move on, and then we'll have more time at the end again for more folks to chime in and ask questions? And it's interesting because some of your questions have already tapped into this question that we had posed for the panelists. And the question is, how do you measure success?

And I have asked both Pam and Kathryn to provide us with some specific examples, and is it increased numbers of apprenticeships? People graduating out of apprenticeship programs into full-time jobs? So, Kathryn or Pam, could you give us some really specific examples? And this ties in a little bit to your data collection under the new performance measures. So how do you capture this data and are then able to report it out?

MS. HOWZE: Go ahead, Kathryn.

MS. CASTELLOES: OK. Basically, the – we have a database system that we use, and we have just more and more employers every day wanting to hire veterans. We're – we use our database system. We use the information like the Veterans in Pipefitting where they are placed in the active duty.

As soon as they're transferring out, we have the information from them. We have – we even receive the report from the Veterans' Affairs Administration yesterday that, just in North Carolina alone with apprenticeship, we have over 400 that are actually drawing from their GI Bill benefits. Now, we have a lot more that are veterans that say they're going to apply, but as of today we have over 400 that are actually receiving their benefits through apprenticeship. And that's a report from the Veterans' Affairs Administration.

MS. RUSSELL: OK.

MS. HOWZE: So we've al- – if I could, we've also seen an increase of our number of registered apprentices by 48 percent in the last 18 months.

MS. RUSSELL: And how are you able to collect and monitor that information because I know data mining is going to be a concern of everybody's now?

MS. HOWZE: So we do a lot of data collection. We actually have the Labor and Economic Analysis Division assigned to commerce. So we work very closely with our quantitative researchers there to keep track of our apprenticeship data, and our general assembly has asked for multiple reports on apprenticeship data in the last six months. And I really think that has really helped us with the general assembly to get these extra funds to grow our program.

MS. RUSSELL: I would agree with that. And how – through that system are you able to measure because I know placing and getting vets in post-service jobs – how are you able to measure how vets are actually hired? You mentioned that you have career fairs, and are you able to keep track there of if a vet met with an employer?


MS. HOWZE: Yeah. We're actually collecting metrics at every hiring event. We're asking our employers, how many vets did you interview? How many vets did you make a conditional offer to? How many vets did you schedule for a second or follow-on interview? And eventually, how many vets did you actually hire? So we're tracking that data very closely.

MS. RUSSELL: And the employers, I mean, they're able – they don't feel that as a burden?

MS. HOWZE: No. They don't. They actually seem to be pretty proud to report that information.

MS. RUSSELL: Excellent. OK. So any other ways besides data that you are able to measure success because working with your partners in employer outreach, obviously veterans, and workforce, are there other intrinsic or softer measures in terms of how your partnership functions, how you resolve this – make critical decisions?

MS. HOWZE: Well, so we're getting a lot of inquiries about replicating youth apprenticeship, public-private sector partnerships across the state. I actually have been on the road this week with a couple of other counties that want to replicate that work. So we have about 11 groups across the state that are groups of like-minded manufacturers who have actually partnered together to create apprenticeship programs through high school youth. So we've developed a process on how to recruit, test, and screen high school youth into an apprenticeship program. We know what that looks like.

We've had wild success with this in North Carolina through groups like Apprenticeship 2000, Apprenticeship Catawba, Apprenticeship Charlotte. So we've got a lot of really active groups coming on board. This last year we rolled out two additional youth apprenticeship partnership groups, the Guilford Apprenticeship Partners in Guilford County and the Career Accelerator Program in Alamance County. So we're having great success with the youth measure, and we're doing great things with our veterans. So we're very proud of that.

MS. RUSSELL: Well, as well you should be, as the numbers prove that.

OK. We've got about 15 minutes left for this call. So I'm going to let folks that have been listening in, since we had some technical difficulties early on, do you have any more questions or comments for either Pam or Kathryn? *6 will unmute your line so you can pose your question.

Q: Hi, Wendy. This is Paulette.

MS. RUSSELL: Hi, Paulette.

Q: I have a question. Hello. Hi, Pam and Kathryn. Can you – (inaudible) – because I got on the call just a little bit late and couldn't get through to ask a question. But can you speak a little bit to your overall office and your integration on your placement of apprenticeship staff in your region and in the One-Stops and how that connects to your office and the work in terms of connections and integrations with the One-Stop system in the state?


MS. HOWZE: Yeah. So we've actually relocated or apprenticeship staff to the One-Stop centers across the state. We've done a lot of programmatic training of the business services folks, the vet staff. We've done a lot of vet training for other staff. Really just awareness I think is the biggest piece of this because everybody was kind of working in the silos previously. But I came from the private sector and I had all these people calling on me about all their programs and I was like, why can't you all just all come to me at one time and tell me how you can solve my problem.

So I think having people collocated together, talking to each other, learning each other's program languages, really reducing the silos is a big one. So sometimes the vet staff will say, that's my employer, and apprenticeship staff will say, no. That's my employer. And what I would say is they're North Carolina employers. They don't belong to any program; right? So really working hard to break down those barriers.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. Thank you. Thank you, Paulette. Anybody else? Go ahead.

Q: No. I said great. Thank you.

MS. RUSSELL: OK.

Q: You're welcome.

MS. RUSSELL: *6 if you have a question or comment for Pam or Kathryn.

MS. HOWZE: So, Wendy, I'd like to make one more comment about something that we – (inaudible) – –

MS. RUSSELL: Sure. Go right ahead.

MS. HOWZE: – that I think could be very helpful. We actually brought in a continuous improvement consultant and walked us – he walked us through the entire administrative process with apprenticeship, and we were able to cut the administrative burden in half as a result of that activity. So really looking at non-value-added paperwork, non-value-added signatures. We are actually going to keep moving forward with this. We would like to get to the point with our apprenticeship documentation that we can go to a DocuSign process, and an employer never has to touch a piece of paper.

MS. RUSSELL: Wow. And how did you – what motivated you to find this individual and bring them in?

MS. HOWZE: So past experience in my private sector, having a youth apprenticeship program, having to do a lot of paperwork, knowing that that could create a burden and it could really make employers want to avoid the entire apprenticeship process because of the administrative burden. I give Kathryn kudos there. We worked very hard to really look at all the administrative process and how to reduce that burden for our employers.


MS. RUSSELL: Well, and that ties back to, remember I was saying, to your questions, do the employers mind providing you with data? But I can appreciate now that you've relieved some of their other burdens. So data makes them look good too.

MS. HOWZE: That's exactly right.

MS. RUSSELL: That's very interesting. Thank you for remembering to share that. *6.

MS. JOHNSON: My name is Yolanda Johnson, and I have another question.

MS. RUSSELL: Sure.

MS. JOHNSON: One thing that you mentioned, you did vet training or current military training in career pathways for IT fields for individuals who are already doing IT type work. They can make that parlay into civilian work. And you also talked about the apprenticeships that you were doing in the local high schools. And I wondered if these apprenticeships, if you have STEM related – just thinking back on the IT, if you have STEM-related apprenticeships in the high school – on the high school level to encourage the young people to go into STEM positions.

MS. HOWZE: So all of our youth apprenticeship programs are in STEM fields.

MS. JOHNSON: OK. I heard you say manufacturing. I didn't understand that you were – (inaudible) –.

MS. HOWZE: The manufacturing like computer numeric control machining, engineering, mechatronics, manufacturing technology, those things. They're all STEM related fields.

MS. JOHNSON: Yeah. I read an article maybe two days ago, an article – and it wasn't about just North Carolina schools – where employers were asking to have youth trained in the manufacturing area, but they didn't specifically state that it was STEM. And I know that STEM positions are the positions that are lucrative today, and I just wanted to know if these were the fields that you were training in. So that's interesting to know. Thank you.

MS. RUSSELL: And, Pam, when you were first giving the context, you mentioned that you were in North Carolina, like many states and regions, are dealing with skill gaps. Are you finding with the youth and other apprenticeships that you are beginning to close those gaps? And are you – do you have a metric of which – against which you're measuring some of that progress?

MS. HOWZE: So we're actually looking often at open positions and skill levels, and honestly, our employers are the ones that are driving this bus because they're the ones who are suffering from not being able to fill their positions. So we want them to take a leadership role on that because we think they need to have skin in the game and commitment. We are finding that our employers are more than willing to have this discussion about youth apprenticeship because we're having great success with it in terms of retention, after four years about 80 percent retention with that employer, which is a really good number.


Now, we have the free community college tuition piece, which relieves them of a financial burden to educate these youth apprentices, and then, honestly, youth apprentices are not expensive in terms of your labor pool; right? When they first start, you're not paying them a lot of money until really they finish and they go through that progressive wage scale. So it's a really good solution at an affordable cost.

MS. RUSSELL: Indeed. OK. We have probably time for one or two more quick questions. *6 to unmute to ask your question or make a comment. This is your last chance to get them alive.

Q: Wendy, this is Beth.

MS. RUSSELL: Hi, Beth.

Q: How are you today?

MS. RUSSELL: Good.

Q: Was hoping our presenters could clarify which programs – they've talked about a lot of great programs, but which ones are for in-service and out-of-service military personnel?

MS. HOWZE: So I think all three –

MS. CASTELLOES: I think –

MS. HOWZE: Go ahead, Kathryn.

MS. CASTELLOES: No. You go ahead, Pam. It's good.

MS. HOWZE: Yes. I think all three of our programs that is our goal is to work with all veterans. So we're working with veterans that have already transitioned out of the military. We're identifying veterans who will transition out in the next six months. So I would say we're working with all populations of veterans in all three programs.

MS. RUSSELL: And could you – I mean, because you did mention some specific – I think Pam gave some specifics where you were working at Camp Lejeune and then at Fort Bragg. Those are for veterans currently in service, and then are your fairs – your job fairs for those out of service? I think that – she was trying to distinguish sort of a little bit which is what?

MS. HOWZE: The hiring events are for any jobseeker with military experience. So it could be a veteran. It could be someone still on active duty but is now looking for a job because they will transition out in the short term. We're not precluding anybody from those hiring events. We also have a large presence of National Guard soldiers that will be interviewing at our hiring events that are what we call weekend warriors but then looking for full-time employment. So all populations of veterans and transitioning veterans is who we're working with, all populations.


MS. RUSSELL: OK. All right. Are there any last questions or comments? *6.

Q: This is Michael Lee from Pittsburgh again. I just – one last question. I know that this was originally supposed to be a webinar. Was there a presentation that was supposed to come with this? And if so, could we get a copy of it?

MS. RUSSELL: No. In fact, I think that was some initial confusion. These calls are all set up just to be calls, and they're – now, I know Pam does have some frameworks; right, Pam, that you – that show how you've integrated some of your programs? Am I correct about that?

MS. HOWZE: I do.

MS. RUSSELL: Because we could post those on the discussion board. Each peer learning call does have a topical discussion board so that you can pose a question, get responses, talk among yourselves. These are set up to be peer-to-peer conversations. So, Pam, we could go ahead and post those on the discussion board, if you send them to me.

MS. HOWZE: OK.

MS. RUSSELL: And make those available.

MS. HOWZE: I'd be glad to.

MS. RUSSELL: OK.

Q: Thank you.

MS. RUSSELL: Sure, but good question. I appreciate that clarification.

So I think this has been a very interesting and useful conversation because Pam and Kathryn have provided some very practical examples and lessons learned. As I said, we could probably continue an entire other call on how they were able to influence some of their very successful legislative successes in recent times, but thank you very much, ladies, for sharing the information and particularly your lessons learned.

And as I just mentioned, we encourage all of you who listened to continue the discussion by posting your questions and comments on the ION discussion board. You just go onto the ION website where you registered through WorkforceGPS. Click on discussion topics on the tab on the ION page, and scroll down to see the discussion thread on integrated services programs.

And click on that, and that's where you'll find where we're going to post Pam's framework as well as hopefully you'll engage in some more conversation among yourselves. We particularly wanted to focus on veterans because I know that that is a population within our country where there has been a great deal of emphasis on providing them a career pathway while they are transitioning out of military service.


So again, thank you very much, Pam and Kathryn, for sharing your expertise today with all of us.


MS. CASTELLOES: You're welcome. Thank you.

MS. RUSSELL: OK. And thank you very much, Pam and Kathryn. We had apparently – Matt, stop recording. And I guess there was an initial glitch where, when we muted all people, it kept them in listening mode so they couldn't chime in. So I'm glad we got that taken care of, and now, folks are able to call in.

So thank you again. I appreciate very much you taking the time and sharing your knowledge, and hopefully others can benefit from it. Pam, if you could share me those couple of slides, I'll make sure they get posted.

MS. HOWZE: I'll take care of it.

MS. RUSSELL: All right. Thank you, ladies. Appreciate it so much.

MS. CASTELLOES: Have a good day.

MS. RUSSELL: All right. Bye-bye.

MS. HOWZE: Bye.

(END)


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