By Janelle Wetzstein, ARGUS-COURIER STAFF
Many of Petaluma’s young adults now graduating from college are finding themselves in a precarious position. Between the economic downturn, a rapid increase in technology and more baby-boomers waiting longer to retire, students who graduate with a job lined up right after school are becoming the minority.
Petaluma native Tyler Hartrich was one of these students. Armed with a degree in city and regional planning from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, he entered the workforce in 2010, skilled enough to have multiple offers from several companies across the nation.
Hartrich — who attended the now-closed Bernard-Eldridge Elementary School and the former Kenilworth Junior High before graduating from Casa Grande High School in 2004 — eventually accepted a creative specialist marketing position in his home town at Enphase, a local solar energy firm.
“I had applications out across the world and a few offers, but it wasn’t until the interview that I discovered how great the potential and growth in this company and area is. So I settled here,” said Hartrich.
But for every Tyler Hartrich who has their pick of jobs after college, there are many others who don’t. Cynthia Murray, a Petaluma resident and CEO of the North Bay Leadership Council, says that gone are the days of young people choosing careers strictly based on what they love to do.
“What we need to reinforce with our young people is the importance of going to jobs that require brains, because there are all kinds of jobs that technology is doing for us,” she said. “We also need to push our young people to careers that are going to remain viable for the long term future.”
Murray says that science, technology, engineering and math majors — or STEM degrees — have the most potential for growth in the employment sector. “That is where the jobs are going, but we’re seeing students not following them. It’s leading to a shortage of local talent.”
Kady Cooper, media relations and communications manager at Enphase, said that while her company was started by Petalumans and has an affinity for hiring local talent, the company recruits from all over the world to make sure it employs those best trained for the firm’s jobs. Enphase is just one of many local companies that works to recruit locally, but has been forced to look outside the area to fill its employment needs.
Murray attributes this lack of local workers to several trends her organization is witnessing right now, including less boys going to college and only 20 percent of females leaning towards STEM degrees.
“With scarce dollars and jobs, we need to make sure that we are pushing kids into careers that they are going to get employment from,” she added.
No matter what careers young people are exploring today, Murray said that job searching itself has become a new skill that nowadays requires more than just picking up the local job classified ads. Much like Hartrich, who scoured job boards and LinkedIn to find his position, Murray stressed that young adults must learn how to network and market themselves to find employment, especially from local businesses.
“One of the best things local young people can do to get connected is to build their network through tools like LinkedIn and Facebook,” Murray said. “The other thing they can do is internships. In my experience, the ones doing internships are the ones getting jobs.”
The North Bay Leadership Council, an employer-led public advocacy organization committed to making employment in the area sustainable and innovative, is just one local organization working to keep homegrown talent in the area.
Local colleges, for instance, offer programs to connect graduates to jobs. Santa Rosa Junior College’s Economic and Workforce Development office offers several ways for students to connect with local employers looking to hire.
Director Chuck Robbins said that his office uses the typical methods of student job boards and campus employment centers, but also tries to step outside the traditional modes of hiring to connect their students with more opportunities.
“We have a Work Experience academic course where students link their course studies with a specific workplace,” he said. “It’s designed to help the students improve their job skills and general work skills by having them do the jobs they are studying for.”
Programs involved in Work Experience include linking culinary students to local restaurants and paralegals to local law firms to have the students gain experience and college credit at the same time.
Robbins added that the two-year certification degree programs at the college all have advisory committees made up of industry people who volunteer to work with the college on course development and curriculum. These members are a great resource and often refer employers looking for qualified people to the college’s instructors, he said.
Murray agreed that a key to keeping talent local is connecting youth with SRJC’s programs and others like it.
“The best thing local young people can do is keep getting more skills, whether it’s a certificate program at the JC or a trade or additional learning. Continuing to pick up new skills is what they’re going to have to do forever to remain employable,” she said.
Contact Janelle Wetzstein at janelle.wetzstein@arguscourier.com or Cynthia Murray, NBLC at cmurray@northbayleadership.org
NOMINATION DEADLINE LOOMING FOR LEADERS OF THE NORTH BAY!
in Featured, UncategorizedGet Your Nomination in Today!
North Bay Leadership Council (NBLC) seeks nominations for its 2012 LEADERS OF THE NORTH BAY AWARDS. The deadline is fast approaching – June 29. If you know a leader who should be given recognition and brought to the community’s attention, please submit a nomination.
This is the sixth year that NBLC has presented awards for leadership. To qualify you must live or work in Sonoma, Marin or Napa counties. The awards are given in five categories: Caught in the Act of Leadership, Individual excellence in leadership; We’re All in this Together, Community building: Paint the Community Green, Environmental stewardship: The ‘Light Bulb’ Went On, Innovative/entrepreneurial spirit: Empowering the Latino Community, Leadership within the Latino community. Honorees can be an individual, organization or partnership.
The awards will be presented at a luncheon ceremony on November 2, 2012, at the Embassy Suites Hotel, San Rafael. For more information, please contact NBLC at info@northbayleadership.org or (707) 283-0028.
Finding Jobs in Petaluma
in FeaturedBy Janelle Wetzstein, ARGUS-COURIER STAFF
Many of Petaluma’s young adults now graduating from college are finding themselves in a precarious position. Between the economic downturn, a rapid increase in technology and more baby-boomers waiting longer to retire, students who graduate with a job lined up right after school are becoming the minority.
Petaluma native Tyler Hartrich was one of these students. Armed with a degree in city and regional planning from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, he entered the workforce in 2010, skilled enough to have multiple offers from several companies across the nation.
Hartrich — who attended the now-closed Bernard-Eldridge Elementary School and the former Kenilworth Junior High before graduating from Casa Grande High School in 2004 — eventually accepted a creative specialist marketing position in his home town at Enphase, a local solar energy firm.
“I had applications out across the world and a few offers, but it wasn’t until the interview that I discovered how great the potential and growth in this company and area is. So I settled here,” said Hartrich.
But for every Tyler Hartrich who has their pick of jobs after college, there are many others who don’t. Cynthia Murray, a Petaluma resident and CEO of the North Bay Leadership Council, says that gone are the days of young people choosing careers strictly based on what they love to do.
“What we need to reinforce with our young people is the importance of going to jobs that require brains, because there are all kinds of jobs that technology is doing for us,” she said. “We also need to push our young people to careers that are going to remain viable for the long term future.”
Murray says that science, technology, engineering and math majors — or STEM degrees — have the most potential for growth in the employment sector. “That is where the jobs are going, but we’re seeing students not following them. It’s leading to a shortage of local talent.”
Kady Cooper, media relations and communications manager at Enphase, said that while her company was started by Petalumans and has an affinity for hiring local talent, the company recruits from all over the world to make sure it employs those best trained for the firm’s jobs. Enphase is just one of many local companies that works to recruit locally, but has been forced to look outside the area to fill its employment needs.
Murray attributes this lack of local workers to several trends her organization is witnessing right now, including less boys going to college and only 20 percent of females leaning towards STEM degrees.
“With scarce dollars and jobs, we need to make sure that we are pushing kids into careers that they are going to get employment from,” she added.
No matter what careers young people are exploring today, Murray said that job searching itself has become a new skill that nowadays requires more than just picking up the local job classified ads. Much like Hartrich, who scoured job boards and LinkedIn to find his position, Murray stressed that young adults must learn how to network and market themselves to find employment, especially from local businesses.
“One of the best things local young people can do to get connected is to build their network through tools like LinkedIn and Facebook,” Murray said. “The other thing they can do is internships. In my experience, the ones doing internships are the ones getting jobs.”
The North Bay Leadership Council, an employer-led public advocacy organization committed to making employment in the area sustainable and innovative, is just one local organization working to keep homegrown talent in the area.
Local colleges, for instance, offer programs to connect graduates to jobs. Santa Rosa Junior College’s Economic and Workforce Development office offers several ways for students to connect with local employers looking to hire.
Director Chuck Robbins said that his office uses the typical methods of student job boards and campus employment centers, but also tries to step outside the traditional modes of hiring to connect their students with more opportunities.
“We have a Work Experience academic course where students link their course studies with a specific workplace,” he said. “It’s designed to help the students improve their job skills and general work skills by having them do the jobs they are studying for.”
Programs involved in Work Experience include linking culinary students to local restaurants and paralegals to local law firms to have the students gain experience and college credit at the same time.
Robbins added that the two-year certification degree programs at the college all have advisory committees made up of industry people who volunteer to work with the college on course development and curriculum. These members are a great resource and often refer employers looking for qualified people to the college’s instructors, he said.
Murray agreed that a key to keeping talent local is connecting youth with SRJC’s programs and others like it.
“The best thing local young people can do is keep getting more skills, whether it’s a certificate program at the JC or a trade or additional learning. Continuing to pick up new skills is what they’re going to have to do forever to remain employable,” she said.
Contact Janelle Wetzstein at janelle.wetzstein@arguscourier.com or Cynthia Murray, NBLC at cmurray@northbayleadership.org
A future of abundance, if it’s grasped; the good news, it can be!
in FeaturedBrad Bollinger, North Bay Business Journal Editor in Chief writes in an editorial
He had just spent an entire day in briefings in the state Capitol and was having a hard time staying optimistic.
The Capitol today is like entering an alternative reality. Staffers are energetically preparing new regulations and energy taxes – cap and trade by some estimates could cost already burdened California businesses $1 billion or more. Sure, there have been some tweaks to CEQA and there is the governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.
But reform to the much-abused California Environmental Quality Act – which contributed greatly to the loss of Lucasfilm’s Grady Ranch project in Marin County – is all-but-dead in an election year. Amazingly, apparently some people in Sacramento actually like the insufferable delaying mechanisms in CEQA because, they reportedly say, it means all constituencies will have time to put in their two cents, even if they apparently have nothing constructive to contribute.
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans in the Capitol openly admit they have stopped talking to each other.
Oh, and did someone mention the state has a $16 billion budget hole.
All of this would understandably put this person firmly in the camp that believes “California is ungovernable.”
But then he watched an incredible speech at Ted.com, a site that carries interesting and inspiring videos of thought leaders. He was preparing for a conference where a talk by X-Prize Foundation CEO Peter Diamandis would be shown.
In the talk, Mr. Diamandis talks about a “Future of Abundance” largely driven by technological innovation. Start with that iPhone in your pocket. In 1978, it would have cost $4 billion. Innovation occurring today, Mr. Diamandis says, will transform energy production and provide new supplies of drinking water to the entire planet. Three-dimensional printing will allow local manufacturing, perhaps in people’s homes. Technology will provide new medicines, treatments and remote diagnostic tools not dreamed of a decade ago. Billions of people are and will be brought into the global conversation – and economy – via cellphones and other forms of communication and goods movement.
“I’m not saying we don’t have our set of problems – climate crisis, species extinction, water and energy shortage – we surely do,” Mr. Diamandis said. But “ultimately we knock them down.”
Which brings us back the state budget crisis and dysfunction in Sacramento.
Yes, the state has its problems. But it is still home to some of the greatest thinkers and innovators anyhere in the world. The state is by far the leading center of venture capital investment and is home to many of the world’s great universities and think tanks. As panels of speakers at the North Bay Leadership Council conference May 31 focused on California’s Bright Future, the North Bay and the Bay Area – with all their challenges – have an educated and affluent population and companies and organizations poised to shape the future.
Sacramento’s dysfunction and budget deficit – which receive unending and out-sized attention – have unnecessary and unfortunate impacts on people and companies.
But the Capitol is not California. To put it in perspective, consider that California’s total economic output is about $1.9 trillion annually. So Sacramento’s budget deficit is a mere fraction of a percent of California’s productive assets, a blip on the screen of a vast and diverse state. It is just one more challenge to knock down.
Take Mr. Diamandis’s word for it. There can be an abundant future if we dream of it.
Brad Bollinger is the editor and associate publisher of the Journal. He can be reached at 707-521-4251 or bbollinger@sonic.net. He was a moderator at the May 31 North Bay Leadership Council Economic Insight Conference where Mr. Diamandis’s talk was shown.
Your Vote Matters … Remember to Vote June 5
in Featured, UncategorizedWe are blessed to live in a democracy. Please exercise your right to vote in the June Primary. This primary is groundbreaking in two ways. It is the first election since redistricting so voters have new boundaries and new candidates to consider. Second, it is the first election where the “Top Two” vote-getters will face a run-off in November. So it is possible that two Democrats can be in the run-off as opposed to the usual Democrat v. Republican run-off. Don’t miss this historic election designed to shake up how we vote and who gets elected.
NBLC’s Endorsements for June 5 Primary
North Bay Leadership Council (NBLC), a coalition of leading employers in Marin, Sonoma and Napa Counties, announces its endorsements for the June Primary. As the only employer-led public policy organization that represents the North Bay, NBLC advocates for a regional perspective when addressing community concerns. NBLC supports candidates that share the same values on improving education, increasing economic competitiveness, reforming public pensions and making government sustainable within today’s fiscal realities, improving transportations, and regulatory reform.
The following candidates have been endorsed by NBLC for their balanced approach on key issues, knowledge, problem-solving skills and ability to address North Bay challenges:
Congressional District #2:
Jared Huffman
Congressional District #5:
Mike Thompson
Marin County Board of Supervisors:
District #4: Steve Kinsey and District #2: Katie Rice
Sonoma County Supervisors:
District #5: Efren Carrillo, District #1: John Sawyer and District #3: Shirlee Zane
Napa County Supervisor:
District #2: Mark Luce
NBLC also endorses Proposition 28, which makes term limits more flexible by allowing legislators to serve a total of 12 years in any office or combination thereof. It closes a current loophole that allows some legislators to serve up to 17 years in office. Prop 28 will allow for more experienced legislators to serve and hopefully, decrease reliance on lobbyists and special interest groups who fill the void of a lack of institutional memory.
NBLC believes in strong public/private partnerships and building relationships between business and government for the betterment of the community. For more information, visit us online at www.northbayleadership.org.