Group seeks professional help

Greater Spokane Incorporated has received $90,000 to help build a new corps of architects, engineers and accountants, professionals whose skills will be in short supply within a decade, a state estimate says.

The Washington Workforce and Education Coordinating Board grant is the most recent, and probably the most unique, of several Spokane skills panels created in response to what economic development officials say has become their greatest challenge: recruiting and training skilled construction, manufacturing, aerospace and health care workers to replace retiring baby boomers.

Professional service workers had not been considered a problem, but the Spokane area’s healthy economy has been soaking up the available bodies. Of the 10,000 hires in the county last year, 2,200 were white-collar professionals, GSI Vice President Amy Johnson said.

“These are high-demand careers right now, especially in Spokane,” she said.

The Washington Employment Security Department estimates Spokane will be short nearly half the architects the community will need in 2014 – a more severe shortfall than those projected for the state (26.8 percent) or nation (up to 17 percent). Deficits for accountants (22.6 percent), engineers (16.2 percent) and information technologists (27 percent) track the state and national numbers.

They are also careers that, unlike others identified by local officials, are more likely to require a degree from a four-year college. Ongoing efforts to train construction, manufacturing and health care workers have been addressed by the Spokane Community Colleges.

While GSI works with area colleges to determine how they might produce more graduates, the professional services skills panel will also go into area middle schools to make students aware of the opportunities in construction and manufacturing, Johnson said.

An initiative to introduce middle school girls to the construction trades, “Pizza, Pop & Power Tools,” earlier this month earned the Spokane Area Workforce Development Council a Governor’s Best Practice Award. “Pizza” attracted just 27 students two years ago. This year, more than 400 bent conduit, hung drywall and operated heavy equipment.

The council received more state funds to expand its programs

Johnson said accounting or architecture may not be as hands-on, but the panel will try to impress on students how many professional fields they can access if they get the necessary math and science skills in school.

A brochure outlining the opportunities will be developed along the lines of those already prepared for construction, manufacturing, health care and aerospace.

Mike Brennan, an economic development program specialist with the state Workforce Board, said the success of Spokane’s other skill panels sold the board on the application for the grant to attack the need for professional service workers.

“It’s a step out of the box for us,” he said. “We looked at it as an experiment.”