Promise and Potential
Kimberly Murnieks, Director, Ohio Office of Budget and Management, and State Chief Financial Officer
“It is an all of Ohio effort, and it will benefit all of Ohio,” said Kimberly Murnieks, director of the Ohio Office of Budget and Management and chief financial officer for the state. “It really is transformational for Ohio and the nation.”
Murnieks, a graduate of the Glenn College master’s degree program in public policy and management, stressed that public policy and public administration decisions positioned the state to attract Intel years before the announcement was made.
Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted’s first budget, she pointed out, focused on the economy and preparing Ohioans for in-demand jobs. A resulting program, TechCred, prepares current and future employees with technology-focused credentials that take less than a year to complete. The administration’s second budget created an economic development framework for potential megaprojects.
So we were poised and ready for Intel even before we knew Intel was going to be the megaproject.
Gerard Basalla, Director of Public Policy, Columbus Partnership
Basalla, who is currently enrolled in the Glenn College online master of public administration and leadership program, said the Columbus Partnership and One Columbus, an economic development organization, joined partners from across the community and state to ensure that Intel chose the Columbus region for its significant semiconductor manufacturing investment.
“The public policy team at the Partnership has worked with and continues to partner with leaders at every level of government on a variety of public policy initiatives, both directly related to the Intel project as well as around the additional policy intersections like workforce, housing, transportation, equity and infrastructure,” Basalla said, citing the federal CHIPS act, passed this summer to provide $280 billion to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, as a particular focus of the group’s recent advocacy work.
Intel has just accelerated all of those challenges or issues we need to address right now.
Josh Hawley, Director, Ohio Education Research Center
In a separate initiative, the Ohio Education Research Center (OERC), a unit of the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, is a partner in an Ohio State initiative that will receive $3 million to design curriculum for Ohio’s Broadband and 5G Sector Partnership to develop a skilled broadband workforce.
“These training programs we are helping to build will share a lot of common elements with the larger work to design programs for Intel,” said OERC Director Josh Hawley.
OERC, in partnership with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Office of Workforce Transformation and Ohio Department of Higher Education, developed the Workforce Supply Tool, which shows projections for jobs and credentials in the state and could be used to inform users about the pipeline of supply of workers to industry as Intel gets established and expands.
Lisa Patt-McDaniel, CEO, Workforce Development Board of Central Ohio
Workforce development and education and training also require successful economic and community development, Patt-McDaniel said.
“That’s a big policy area, and it takes funding and everybody rowing in same direction, making it easy for families, in whatever form they choose, to exist and for resources to be available so everybody can choose whatever they’re best at,” she said. “You can’t do any of that without workforce development, or without economic development making sure our companies want to stay here but are also invested in our communities, and then community development making sure that quality of life is available for everybody. And all that requires public servants to understand it’s not their narrow focus on day-to-day work, but it’s all interconnected. If one leg of the stool breaks, the other two can’t stand on their own.”