The Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), is an association of city and county governments and metropolitan planning organizations serving a nine-county, bi-state, greater Kansas City region. At a December, 2008 meeting of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce Energy Policy Committee, representatives of the Chamber, MARC, Metropolitan Energy Center (MEC), Metropolitan Community College (MCC), OneKC WIRED, and Johnson County Community College (JCCC) agreed to work together as a Steering Committee to coordinate efforts to deploy new programs aimed at developing a regional workforce equipped to meet the needs of private and public sector employers involved in sustainable industries and decision-making.
MARC procured CSW as a facilitator and research organization to aid in assessing potential demand, identifying federal and state resources, and facilitating consensus on strategies. CSW explored secondary labor market information, surveyed employers and training entities, and conducted focus groups with employers and training entities. The data was brought before a “subject matter experts” group that broadly represented the industry, labor, employment and training entities, educational institutions, and community-based organizations to generate recommendations for goals and strategies.
This report summarizes the effort.