GOOD NEWS: JOB TRAINING EFFORT IS WORKING

Government and its programs take their lumps these days, both on these pages and among the general public. It is all the more important, therefore, to highlight a program that works. One success story is a government job training program that helps attract new businesses to Missouri and assists in keeping existing employers here and in fostering their growth.

This successful program is the customized training program of the Missouri Department of Economic Development. When a company is considering many potential locations for a new facility, among the most pressing needs is a well-trained work force. In today's high-tech age, this need is more urgent than ever. This is where customized work force training fits into industrial recruitment.

Missouri's program is provided by the Department of Economic Development in cooperation with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Division of Employment Security and the state's Private Industry Councils. In Cape Girardeau, training has been provided by specialists at the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School. Former director Gary Gilbert spearheaded several such customized training programs when he headed the school, including one for Dana Corp. Similar efforts have continued under his successor, Harold Tilley.

Training is usually of the on-the-job variety, conducted either in a classroom setting at the employer's place of business, or at an educational facility such as the vocational-technical school. Of particular benefit, qualifying employers are eligible for 50 percent reimbursement of a trainee's wages for the training period. Training can be for unskilled youths and adults, whether already employed or currently unemployed. Included as possible items for employer reimbursement are instructors' salaries, instructional supplies and training equipment.

The customized work force training program began in Missouri in 1987. Since then, 626 companies have taken advantage of it to help achieve the goal of a better-trained work force. Overall, a total of 59,879 trainees have gone through the program at a cost of $33.4 million over the last eight years. Funding in fiscal 1994 was $3.4 million, when 4,595 workers were trained.

In our region, companies that have taken advantage of the program include C&F Foods in Sikeston, SEI Enterprises in Scott City, Foamex on Nash Road, Lee Rowan in Jackson, Major Custom Cable in Perryville and, in Cape Girardeau, Dana Corp. and Procter & Gamble.

Leaders of industry testify to the worth of the program. When Dana Corp. located here in the late 1980s, it specifically stressed this training program as having helped make the difference in deciding to build in Cape Girardeau. Dana is a Fortune 500 company, but small companies benefit as well. "They were a huge help to us," said Harry Sanders of SEI Enterprises, the entrepreneurial start-up that located in Scott City two years ago. "They made the difference in educating our work force about our business of plastics recycling."

Get any group of government policy wonks together, and you are sure to hear lots of chatter about public-private partnerships, one of the great buzzwords currently. When hearing such talk, taxpayers will be excused for reaching, instinctively, for their wallets. The Missouri customized training program, however, is one that seems to be working.