Category: Business & Careers

Development Foundation Connects Design Professionals with City Hall

Posted on by meganjansick

City Hall Connections

The Sioux Falls Development Foundation, in partnership with the City of Sioux Falls, recently hosted two events targeting architects and engineers in the Sioux Falls area. These events were offered as part of the Development Foundation’s Business Retention and Expansion (BR&E) initiative, which focuses on local economic development opportunities.

Architectural and engineering firms work day-in and day-out to help grow our community. These professions work to design neighborhoods, business parks, buildings and so much more that contribute to Sioux Falls. One area the Development Foundation is focused on is the importance of developing relationships and strong communication between our private sector companies and public sector officials.

During a BR&E visit with an existing company in Sioux Falls, the Foundation learned about the company’s frustration with City Hall due to imposed requirements associated with their expansion project. The Development Foundation discovered there was a miscommunication between the City, the contractor, the engineering firm and the company. As it turns out, the requirements that formed the basis of the company’s frustrations were in fact not required. This resulted in financial savings for the company and a better working relationship with City Hall.

On January 22 and February 11, architecture and engineering professionals were invited to attend an Open House event with the City’s Planning and Development Services Department to learn what’s new with permitting processes and plan reviews and to interact with the individuals that work at the City on these projects. These events marked one solid step forward in cultivating strong relationships between our business sector and the City of Sioux Falls, so that when companies make investments to expand, they have a great experience.

 

Mike Gray
To learn more contact

Mike Gray

Director of Business, Retention & Expansion

USD meets growing demand for health care workers with hands-on, high-tech programs

Posted on by shannonmollet

Whether they’re using dental instruments or 3D printers, doing patient simulations or digital image analysis, students at the University of South Dakota likely have health care-related jobs waiting for them when they graduate.

“We have a really powerful system of health care in South Dakota, without question, and they’re also really good jobs,” USD president Sheila Gestring said. “They’re high-demand jobs, and the employment growth projections going forward are also significant.”

The appeal and availability of those jobs is driving student interest in both USD’s School of Health Sciences and its emerging biomedical engineering program within the College of Arts & Sciences.

In many cases, students graduating with degrees from these programs will find their occupations projected to experience double-digit percentage increases.

The School of Health Sciences, founded in 2007, is the fastest-growing school at USD with 2,400 students among 13 major degree programs:

  • Addiction counseling and prevention
  • Dental hygiene
  • Health sciences
  • Medical Laboratory Science
  • Nursing
  • Occupational therapy
  • Paramedic
  • Physical therapy
  • Physician assistant studies
  • Public health
  • Social work

Nearly two-thirds of graduates over the last decade have remained in South Dakota.

“The long-term demand for healthcare professionals is going to continue to increase nationwide and in South Dakota,” said Haifa Abou Samra, dean of the School of Health Sciences.

“it’s expected to range anywhere between 11 to 29 percent depending on the discipline or profession.”

 

In-demand jobs

The dental hygiene program in the School of Health Sciences is so sought after that only about one in two applicants is accepted, and there’s steady demand for graduates.

It’s a unique program, allowing students to staff dental clinics in Sioux Falls and Vermillion serving those in need of dental care, as well as patients on reservations and in prisons.

“I became aware of the value of community involvement through my service as a student in community clinics,” said Hannah Poppens, a Brandon, S.D. native and USD graduate.

“I also benefitted through my work in those clinics, because I learned to serve a variety of patients and that helps me now as a practicing professional.”

Poppens now works in a Sioux Falls dental office, where she landed a position months before graduation.

“My practice offers patient-centered care,” she said. “That’s very important to me, and that’s something my dental hygiene professors taught us to deliver.”

USD’s unique addiction counseling and prevention program also is producing in-demand graduates.

Leon Leader Charge has an especially powerful story. The Parmelee, S.D., native and member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe earned his bachelor of addiction counseling and prevention at USD and now is working on his master’s there. He now works with an organization called Tribal Tech that works with tribes nationwide to create and implement substance abuse and mental health programs and curricula.

At USD, “I learned hands-on science,” he said. “I was taught evidence-based, prevention-based science. Because of my education and training, I am able to help people in my own community, and I’m also able to travel to tribal communities around the country and have a national impact. I am grateful for those opportunities.”

Students like Brooke Miller also know there are jobs waiting after graduation. With one year left in her nursing program, she already has one secured with Avera in her hometown of Pierre.

“It’s just been a whirlwind. Nursing’s been great,” she said, adding she loves the clinical experience students receive and the small-group settings they enjoy with professors to go over what they’re learning.

“We get to go into different hospitals, different settings and work hands-on with patients,” she said.

She will have completed two internships by the time she graduates – one last summer at the South Dakota Women’s Prison and one this coming summer in a hospital setting learning labor and delivery.

“I’m very excited about that and to get that degree,” she said. “And then I’ll be working in South Dakota and giving back to my community. I’ve always loved that small town community, and I want to give back.”

While Miller will be returning to her roots, other USD nursing graduates are recruited nationwide.

“Last year we had students who went to Arizona, Colorado, Mayo Clinic, Philadelphia, so national employers compete for our students,” Samra said.

“And we have more interested nursing students than we have the capacity to admit. We aren’t able to admit all the qualified students who apply, because of space limitations.”

To better accommodate demand for these and other health services programs, USD is hoping to replace an aging facility with a modern 45,000-square-foot building that will add contemporary classrooms, simulation and lab spaces.

“It will allow us to expand these programs, admit students who are wait-listed and fuel the workforce, because there will be more graduates available to employers,” Gestring said.

And employers definitely are interested in partnering to secure students. The School of Health Sciences leverages affiliations with more than 1,000 businesses and organizations that offer students work experience while in college.

Those public-private partnerships are becoming more and more critical, and we’re finding that sharing expertise, sharing the resources can really have a much greater impact than trying to do those sorts of things on your own,” Gestring said.

Biomedical programs take off

Education, research and industry all are coming together in Sioux Falls, where USD is growing its undergraduate and graduate programs in biomedical engineering. The department is part of the College of Arts & Sciences, and students often take courses both in Sioux Falls and Vermillion.

The growing biomedical field integrates engineering and medicine to address challenges in health care, exposing students to everything from medical device development to digital software-based analysis of medical images.

“It’s really an emerging industry in South Dakota,” Gestring said. “Our bachelor’s program is still very, very new but we do have nearly 20 students in that program. And our PhD program is full. We cannot accept very many, as it’s a very demanding curriculum.”

Sioux Falls resident Tim Hartman is one of USD’s first biomedical engineering undergraduates. He began by earning an associate’s degree in integrated science, taking courses in Sioux Falls, and decided to progress into the undergraduate program.

“I’m more of an equipment kind of person than working with patients, and this allows me to do that,” he said. “I work with high-tech microscopes and I’m working in a lab now where we’re making software for imaging and I’ve found I really like that.”

He could see himself pursuing a graduate degree and focusing on bioinformatics or computational biology – areas where he knows expertise is needed in the medical field.

“It’s a numbers field – a way to replace subjective human insight with automated computer analysis, and you can also incorporate machine learning,” Hartman said.

He had considered going to college out of state, but was impressed by USD’s vision for its Sioux Falls presence – which includes the Graduate Education and Applied Research Center, or GEAR Center, where he takes some of his classes and receives hands-on experience. The planned USD Discovery District adjacent to the property will allow for further commercialization of innovations and provide students with early career experience.

“There’s a lot of investment being made in biotech in the Sioux Falls area,” he said. “It would be awesome if this became like the Silicon Valley of biotech. That’s a vision I could latch onto.”

He’s not alone. USD anticipates more student interest as the biomedical program and its industry partnerships continue to grow.

“It’s an incredible opportunity having the GEAR Center right there on site,” Gestring said. “We have had several businesses, startups, incubate there and really get a start. And one of the future tenants of the Discovery District is currently in that building and waiting for the construction of the new facility.”

Students increasingly are remaining in the state to apply what they learn, she added.

“We’re finding our graduates stay in South Dakota,” Gestring said. “We’ve had 20 PhD graduates and 12 of them are leaders in the state right now.”

That also meets a broader goal for USD, she added: Preparing the state’s future leaders, regardless of the degree program they complete.

“It’s important for USD to always provide those community leaders,” Gestring said.

“From the state’s attorney office to the superintendents of schools to the leaders in health care and throughout the business community, many of them have gone through USD. And these also are active volunteers on nonprofit boards, school boards and city governing boards. The most important thing for USD is to continue that tradition of providing leaders to communities.”

USF evolves approach to fit changing workforce needs

Posted on by shannonmollet

Originally Published by SiouxFalls.Business

As the University of Sioux Falls class of 2019 received its diplomas this month, the school’s president, Brett Bradfield, knows each person could migrate out of his or her field seven or eight times during the career ahead.

Preparing students for that unpredictable future means continually honing the education provided and increasingly working closely with industry to connect and equip students for the workplace.

“It doesn’t necessarily take a complete retooling. You take majors that have always been solid, but you reconsider how they fit into the current paradigm of the employment needed in our community,” Bradfield said.

“We believe our liberal arts portion of our education ensures that many of the so-called soft skills and important dispositional attributes employers are looking for beyond specific job skills are present in our students.”

The approach was a success for 2016 graduate Teagan Molden and Howalt+McDowell Insurance, a Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC company, thanks to an internship after Molden’s junior year.

“I wouldn’t have even known about Howalt if not for USF and the staff there,” said Molden, who came to the university from Minnesota and was a standout on the NSIC championship basketball team.

She gained hands-on experience at the firm, going out on client calls and organizing a LinkedIn training for the entire office.

When she returned to USF her senior year, she continued working part time.

Bradfield knew a bond had been built between student and employer when he walked into a basketball game and saw the Howalt+McDowell executive team there cheering on Molden.

“They had been so pleased with her in their office; they told me that evening their intent was to hire her.”

Molden now has spent three years at the firm as an adviser in the client employee health and benefits department.

I think the business school helped me a lot in developing my core competencies and helping me get the internship and preparing me for my career,” she said.

USF has a strong record of similar success.

Of the students in the class of 2018 who responded to a survey, 99 percent had found full- or part-time work or went to graduate school.

Many come from USF’s undergraduate and graduate business programs, which include degrees in finance and accounting; its three nursing programs, which include an MBA in health care management; and its education program, which offers undergraduate and graduate degrees.

“Most of our nursing students will already have job offers before they graduate,” Bradfield said. “We have great success, and we consider it an honor to support the city, state and region that supports us.”

USF began the 2018-19 school year with record enrollment, counting about 1,550 students among undergraduate, graduate and adult learning programs.

New offerings include a concentration within the media studies major in social media marketing, as well as a certificate program designed for those already working.

“There’s a very large market for that, and we’re in that with both feet as a university,” Bradfield said.

The school also weaves in what he calls “the hidden curriculum.” It’s an emphasis on skills especially valuable in the workplace.

It’s how we talk about the importance of work ethic, responsibility, team play, collaboration, entrepreneurial spirit in the sense that you’re a problem-solver. So it’s not necessarily trying to start your own business but being a problem-solver who can bring new ideas into the business climate.

Originally Published by SiouxFalls.Business

USF is trying to become even more connected in the business community, leading to the sorts of opportunities that matched students like Molden with employers such as Howalt+McDowell.

“We see a real benefit in that because it allows our students to take the theoretical constructs they learn in the classroom and add experiential learning,” Bradfield said. “And the business community is finding there’s a real advantage to this, and they take on students and work with them and find those that are promising.”

At Howalt+McDowell, the firm has worked with its partners in higher education, and it has honed its recruitment strategy.

That includes speaking to college students on campus, offering firm tours and structuring its internship program so students receive broad exposure to jobs at the firm and can choose which areas interest them.

“USF is a great school. There’s no question about that,” Howalt’s chief innovation officer Kira Kimball said. “We’ve worked with USF for our internship program in others ways, and I think the liberal arts education is a great background. You learn a lot of critical thinking skills, good reading and writing skills. That’s pretty foundational. We can train on all the technical expertise, but that sets a really firm foundation.”

And while USF has a 135-year legacy in the city, Bradfield realizes that preparing students for a changing workplace is what will sustain the school for future learners.

“As the city has grown and the economy has grown, we have grown with it,” he said. “We see that as a great blessing for us because honestly in the state of higher education across the nation … with complete respect to other parts of the nation, I’m certainly glad we’re in Sioux Falls.”

Workforce development priorities focus on drawing talent, educating for future needs

Posted on by shannonmollet
Originally Published by SiouxFalls.Business
Kurt Loudenback knows what it’s like to have to hire dozens of people to keep a business growing.

That’s what success has meant for Grand Prairie Foods, the company he and his wife, Valerie, have grown into a national provider of food products to the hospitality industry.

About a year ago, there were 150 employees. Now, that number has grown to more than 200.

 

We believe we’ll be well over 225, maybe pushing 250 by midsummer,” Loudenback said. “We use many hiring methods, and we’ve been able to do it, but in today’s low unemployment environment, that’s not easy to do.

Grand Prairie could be a proverbial poster child, though, for workforce development efforts in Sioux Falls.

The company has been a leader in working to connect the refugee and immigrant population with job opportunities. In return, word of mouth has led to more workers. Grand Prairie also works closely with LSS to help build a pipeline of potential employees.

“My message is don’t try to do everything internally,” Loudenback said. “It’s important to be engaged in the community and important to understand the resources available.”

The Sioux Falls Development Foundation strives to be the place for businesses to connect to those resources, and with new leadership and a renewed focus on workforce development, it’s a significant priority for this year and beyond.

“Workforce development is the predominant discussion we hear from businesses, and it’s across the board from skilled trades to professional trades,” said Bob Mundt, the foundation’s president.

“Everyone needs workers: The service industry, manufacturing, processing, banks, insurance, everyone is looking for people.”

It can be a broad and daunting topic to tackle, but the Development Foundation is guided by a strategic action agenda set forth in the most recent five-year Forward Sioux Falls campaign.

These interlocking circles show how the foundation blends talent attraction and retention with talent development efforts.

Leading the effort is Denise Guzzetta, who joined the foundation in late 2018 as vice president of talent and workforce development. Her background includes two decades in the global finance and benefit industries with Fortune 50 companies.

“Denise has the credibility within the corporate arena to bring meaningful change. Her experience in creating new career development initiatives necessary for economic growth provides an effective platform to connect with the human resource community,” Mundt said.

“She’s aligning all of the pieces necessary to fully implement the strategic workforce action agenda. From students to educators to HR and business leaders, she has the background we need to connect with all those populations.”

In her first few months, Guzzetta has laid out a robust plan for advancing the strategic action.

“The Development Foundation’s role is to make sure that businesses have what they need in order to expand,” she said. “And the largest component of that is a very engaged, educated workforce. It’s critical. It’s the No. 1 need we have today.”

Dave Rozenboom agrees. The president of First Premier Bank also chairs the joint venture management committee of Forward Sioux Falls.

“As a banker, we have a lot of customers who are in business, and the No. 1 theme I hear is the single biggest limiting factor our customers have, and the business community has at large, to continue to grow and expand their business or own economy would be the labor shortages that we face,” he said.

“If you look at the Sioux Falls metropolitan area and you look back 25 years, you look back 50 years, clearly we’ve benefited from a rural-to-urban migration. And now as you look at the next 25 years, you realize that probably isn’t going to repeat itself, certainly at the same level.”

That requires the community to grow its population from alternative sources, including urban-to-urban migration and the immigrant and refugee population, he said.

The area also is challenged by its high labor force participation rate, which Rozenboom estimates is 74 percent to 75 percent of people age 18 to 65, compared with the national rate of 62 percent.

“We know we’ve got a population here that likes to work,” he said. “They’ve got a strong work ethic. The challenge is we’ve probably maximized as much of the labor participation rate as we can get, so we’ll really be dependent on population growth to provide that workforce for the future.”

Targeted approach

The Development Foundation’s approach to workforce development starts with the number 2,173. That’s how many post-secondary students have been identified in a 100-mile radius with education in fields where area businesses need expertise.

“They represent finance, general business, engineers, construction trades, health care trades, precision mechanical trades. We need those people here now to fulfill the needs of the community,” Guzzetta said.

“The No. 1 thing this year is to pull more talent into the area. We’re focusing heavily on bringing them in through talent tours, talent draft days, and we’re looking at targeting an expanded radius by working with our area colleges and technical institutes to reach out to their alumni about opportunities to come back to the area.”

The foundation also remains nimble in its approach to worker outreach. Grand Prairie Foods has seen the benefit of that firsthand.

When Gold’n Plump closed its chicken-processing plant in Luverne, Minn., in late 2017, the Development Foundation led targeted marketing efforts directed at displaced workers.

“We ended up hiring half a dozen skilled positions from that facility in our company,” Loudenback said. “I can’t say directly what brought us those people, but certainly the total campaign had a positive effect. That’s an example of what it’s done for us and what we believe is an opportunity to help attract talented folks in the region.”

Community effort

Achieving those big goals will take participation from across the business community and represents an opportunity for businesses to get involved.

Loudenback has stepped up already by chairing the workforce-talent committee for the Development Foundation, helping develop workforce strategies.

“There’s an internal and an external effort,” he said. “Internally, we want to make sure there’s engagement with businesses and the education community in Sioux Falls to ensure we’re meeting their future workforce needs. The external component involves outreach to education institutions in surrounding states and to individuals to essentially recruit from those communities.”

Guzzetta has formed a recruitment council with committees working on talent acquisition, talent incentives and career-based training. There has been strong interest from the business community, but others can still participate.

My message to businesses is to get your people involved with us, come work with us, be part of this community, and we develop talent programming and get engaged,” she said.

The Development Foundation will continue to share information, resources and best practices through its Workforce Information Now digital portal.

Achieving the goals of the strategic action agenda and building the pipelines necessary for best-in-class workforce development will take time, Mundt added.

“Be patient,” he urged businesses. “Get connected by participating in our talent programs, our recruiting programs, job fairs we’ll be having, our WIN content, and if you have questions or comments or criticisms, call us.”

It’s a collective, community effort to develop the future workforce, he said.

“It will take us doing our job at the Development Foundation but also will take companies doing their job to create the type of environment people want to be part of, remaining flexible in their benefits programs and hiring practices and being open-minded to new ideas and maybe new populations.”

Back at Grand Prairie Foods, Loudenback echoed that sentiment.

“There’s a vibrant process in place now to make sure the needs are defined, and there’s communication going on to make sure the workforce is educated to meet those needs,” he said. “Let’s continue to build Sioux Falls as a community together, and let’s not try to do it independently.”