Partnering with Microsoft on Skills Training
East Side One Stop Center, Baltimore, Maryland
October 14, 2009
Thank you all for being here, and thanks to all those who work with Karen Sitnick at this one-stop center. Congratulations on the tremendous work that you do for the people of our city. Mayor Dixon, I know how rightly proud you are of workforce development in the city of Baltimore and how proud you of Karen Sitnick’s leadership. I want to thank you all for being here.
And I want to thank Fred Humphries and everyone with Microsoft.
Announcement
We are announcing today that your state government has entered into a job training partnership with Microsoft that will provide 13,500 Maryland citizens with technology training,… helping to bring our citizens into the new economy, advance their own careers, and improve their own skills,… while advancing the big goal we’ve set for our State of improving the marketable skills of our workforce 20% by 2012.
Why is that important? Because in a knowledge-based, creative-based, innovation-based economy, it’s the talents, it’s the skills of our people that are really going to carry us not only out of this recession, but into a new era of greater opportunity. And Maryland wants to lead the way.
This sort of leadership is connected to virtually every part of our mission statement in the O’Malley-Brown Administration, which at it’s core is about strengthening and growing the ranks of an increasingly diverse, upwardly mobile middle class. The only way to do this is by building upon the skills and talents of our people.
And that requires a government that works. But government cannot do it alone. And that’s why we are so grateful that Microsoft is partnering up with us in this opportunity to deepen the connections between the skills of our people and the jobs that are in demand in this knowledge-based economy.
Expanding Opportunity To More People Rather Than Fewer
As we look toward the future, we know the demand for computer professionals is only going to increase. In fact if we look at the numbers in the last couple years, as we have seen job losses in the nation and in Maryland, one profession continues to grow. And you know what that is? It’s IT and professional skills.
Our challenge, and really our opportunity, is to prepare our workforce to meet the increased demand. To give our people the basic training and skills that they need, in order to ascend that ladder of economic independence.
That’s why, working together as One Maryland we’ve chosen to make record investments in education, creating the best public school system in the United States of America with Baltimore City kids leading the way in terms of their rate of improvement.
That’s why, for 4 years in a row, together, even in these tough times we’ve made college more affordable and more accessible to more people as the only State in the Union to go not one, not two, not three, but four years in a row without a penny increase in in-state college tuition for Maryland kids.
It’s why, working together, we have a number of skills training initiatives underway, including Maryland Business Works which has provided training to nearly 3,100 workers in high demand areas.
It’s why, working together, we’re using our One Stop Career Centers – including our hosts for today’s event – to provide technology training and other services to tens of thousands of Marylanders each month.
It’s why, working together, we’re putting a renewed statewide emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math education, or STEM.
Conclusion
Our challenge in Maryland and across our country is to connect innovation with opportunity and progress, and to do it quickly before the pace of our problems overtakes the pace of our progress.
There is no "easy button," but despite the magnitude of our challenges in these difficult times, the strengths, the potential, the innovation assets – they’re all right here for us if we’re willing to continue working together and embracing the shared values which unite us as a people:
Our belief in the dignity of every individual; our belief in our shared responsibility to advance the common good; and our faith that one person can make a difference and God wants every partial victory.
Together we can find ways, we can find partnerships, whereby we can invest in the talents and skills of our people.
Thank you. And once again, I really want to thank Microsoft.
