Preparing tomorrow's transportation workforce : a Midwest summit.

PDFTech ReportLabor forceLaborContinuing educationEducationTrainingPersonnel developmentIowaMidwest Transportation ConsortiumNambisan, ShashiHallmark, ShaunaAlbrecht, ChristopherIowa State University. Institute for TransportationMidwest Transportation ConsortiumUnited States. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Innovative Technology AdministrationUniversity Transportation Centers Program (U.S.)United States. Federal Highway AdministrationNTL-PLANNING AND POLICY-EducationNTL-PLANNING AND POLICY-PLANNING AND POLICYUS Transportation CollectionPreparing Tomorrow\u2019s Transportation Workforce: A Midwest Summit, held April 27\u201328, 2010, in Ames, Iowa, was one of severalregional transportation workforce development summits held across the United States in 2009 and 2010 as part of a coordinatedinitiative to ultimately develop a national strategy to address future transportation workforce issues. The initiative is being led by the U.S. Department of Transportation\u2019s (DOT) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA). This particular summit washosted by Iowa State University\u2019s Midwest Transportation Consortium (MTC) and Institute for Transportation (InTrans).The purpose of the Midwest summit was to assess the educational and training needs of the future transportation workforce and identifystrategies to address those needs across various career paths. It addressed a broad spectrum of topics including strategies to attractwomen and under-represented minority groups, pre-college opportunities and strategies, post-secondary education, post-collegecontinuing education, professional licensure, and specific industry perspectives. The goals of the summit were (1) to gain an improvedunderstanding of the transportation workforce needs of Iowa and the surrounding states and (2) to identify best practices in addressingthe workforce development needs. This event had two tracks: one focused on pre-college education and the other focused primarily oncollege education and practitioners.Attendees provided a good cross-section of the larger transportation industry. From what was learned at the summit, Iowa StateUniversity, like other regional hosts, can develop a \u201cprofile of needs\u201d for Iowa including specific job categories over specific timehorizons. The summit was also successful in identifying best practices in addressing the workforce needs that can be utilized by us andothers as potential tools or in a \u201cnational-level list of attributes.\u201d Each regional summit has provided some guidance in developingstatewide profiles. The collection of best practices or tools from all the regional summits can be shared and applied to address state (orregional) needs profiles to attract, develop, and retain an effective workforce