Over 150 leaders in education, business, industry, and government came together at the Future Ready Iowa Regional Summit at Central College Monday.

Speakers from all of those areas, including students, had the chance to share about the workforce needs across the state, region, and county, all with the goal of increasing the number of Iowans with some level of postsecondary education or training to 70% by 2025.

Lt. Governor Adam Gregg was the keynote speaker, and tells KNIA/KRLS News the bipartisan effort passed with unanimous support in the 2018 session, showing the critical need to fill hundreds of open jobs and careers in Iowa isn’t limited to one political party or area of the state.

“Businesses are ready to grow…business has never been doing better, but the big problem they have is they need skilled workers to fill the positions that they’ve got,” Gregg says. “When it came time to try and solve that problem, we put to together a proposal and worked with the legislature to get it done, and everybody was willing to get behind that.”

“That doesn’t happen very often on complex legislation–I mean it does for non-controversial stuff, but on a complex thing — tackling the state’s biggest problem, you wouldn’t expect unanimity.”

One of the programs highlighted locally was the welding apprenticeship developed by Vermeer, DMACC, Pella Community Schools, and numerous other regional partners. Panels made up of employers, education leaders, and Iowa Workforce Development also shared the latest trends in how to achieve the goals of the Future Ready Iowa initiative.

Stay tuned to KNIA/KRLS all this week to hear how different state and local groups are playing a role in the program.

(Photos provided by Iowa Workforce Development)