Educating the Workforce & Places to call home

Southwest Florida boasts a wealth of public and private schools at both the secondary and higher education levels. While Canterbury School-a nondenominational independent school in Lee County-aims to prepare students for achievement in college and beyond, the majority of our schools incorporate a strong focus on workforce education.

Notable in this is Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). Since opening in 1997, the university has experienced phenomenal enrollment growth and added bachelor and graduate degree programs on a campus that has blossomed to more than 50 buildings.

Programs that the school started with, such as nursing, have expanded. Others, such as the Resort and Hospitality Management Program, became possible only with the strong support and guidance of the business community; leaders in the resort industry approached FGCU and pushed for a curriculum to support the heavy demand for labor in the service sector. The same is true for FGCU's Professional Golf Management (PGM) Program.

An engineering school launched at FGCU in the fall of 2005 is slated to have degree programs in civil and environmental engineering, biomedical engineering and engineering management-all a result of growth in Southwest Florida in both real estate and the civil engineering development market.

The demand for nursing skills and qualified healthcare workers will only grow, and area schools are responding. Edison College offers registered nurse (RN) certification associate degrees at its Fort Myers, Naples and Punta Gorda campuses. Edison's Basic Nursing Program is designed for students enrolling to become RNs; its advanced-placement program caters to licensed practical nurses (LPNs) who want to be RNs. At FGCU, nursing students earn RN credentials plus a bachelor's degree. And all hospitals are participating in nurse-training programs to foster career paths for nurses.

Another fast-growing local institution is International College, a private college founded in 1990. With a main campus in Fort Myers and additional sites in Cape Coral and in communities outside of Lee County, International College offers associate, bachelor and graduate degrees. International provides courses in 16 professional disciplines and offers an intensive English as a Second Language program.

Training also is available away from the school environment. One example is the Southwest Florida Workforce Development Board, a nonprofit agency that manages Career and Service centers throughout the five-county area of Lee, Charlotte, Collier, Hendry and Glades counties. Its training programs are all demand-driven and based on high-skill, high-wage occupations.

The Workforce Development Board aims to create training opportunities and funding initiatives to help companies.

"These programs do make companies more attractive to employees, because they develop careers within an organization that management might not otherwise be able to offer," says program division director Tracy Lansberry. "The training enables employees to make more money, and it helps companies to grow."

As land values and home prices continue to rise, Fort Myers' area leaders are pitching in to make sure enough affordable housing is in place to keep teachers, nurses, public safety personnel and other workers that are essential to the community.

The Horizon Council is a 62-member public-private board, staffed by the Lee County Economic Development Board, which explores workforce issues and makes recommendations to Lee County's Board of County Commissioners.

"This is a serious issue that needs our attention right way," says Mike Jackson, Cape Coral's economic development director, who serves as chairman of the council's Workforce Housing Task Force. "We want to completely understand the problem and have solutions at hand so that when policymakers discuss it, they will be making informed decisions."

Task force membership includes professionals from The Bonita Bay Group, Lee Memorial Health System and Lee County's Workforce Advisory Board, among others.

Solutions might involve providing a central housing resource, which could be a Web site, to facilitate a search. Others might be ways the county government could facilitate development of housing that could be offered at lower than current median prices.

"In other words, we're trying to get at the root of what it will take to make the housing more affordable," Jackson says. "We might find that density is the one variable that we can control that actually makes a difference.

"It is critical that we find a way to help our employers to continue to grow and prosper," says Jackson. "We will not have a desirable, diversified economy unless we find a way to overcome these challenges."

-Mary Lou Smart