The Innovation Center was honored to welcome Emily Stover-DeRocco, assistant secretary of Employment and Training for the Department of Labor (DOL).

Stover-DeRocco was in southeast  Missouri to help kick off the WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development) initiative in which the Southeast Innovation Center plays an integral role. The WIRED initiative, which provides the southeast Missouri region with $5 million in funds over the next three years,  focuses on workforce development, job creation, economic development and entrepreneurial training. 

The WIRED kick off began with Stover- DeRocco and her team touring southeast Missouri’s geographic and economic landscape, visiting the SEMO Port Authority, seeing the downtown Cape Girardeau sights, and stopping at the Innovation Center to tour the Business Incubator and learn more about the entrepreneurial training program. Brainstorming meetings continued at the local Career and Technology Center, and a public forum was held in the afternoon. 

 “I don’t allow anyone to call WIRED a grant,” said assistant secretary Stover-DeRocco. “I like to think of it as a force.”

 The ‘force’ is comprised of the partnerships of the Workforce Investment Board (WIB) of southeast Missouri, the Innovation Center, local economic development agencies in a 14-county southeast Missouri region and the DOL.  There are several stakeholders in the WIRED initiative: entrepreneurial training, economic development, educational–post secondary, educational–K-12 and area employers.  The Innovation Center is providing the expertise and implementing the entrepreneurial training piece for the WIRED initiative.

“WIRED will fundamentally change the way we do business,“ said Roy Vanderford, vice president of Tom Miller and Associates, the firm responsible for writing the WIRED proposal in cooperation with the WIB.  “We will have people working together who have a commitment to transformation.”

For the WIRED initiative, three additional committees were formed to promote innovation and to help implement new, exemplary programs.  Bill Vickery, Southeast's Small Business Development Center director and director of Entrepreneurship and Training at the Innovation Center, will chair the entrepreneurial committee called Biz Start.   Other teams include Skill Smart, which utilizes the expertise of educational leaders from area K-12, community colleges and four-year colleges; and, Grow Smart, which is headed by regional economic development leaders knowledgeable in business and industry recruitement and in implementing small business growth strategies.

The final piece of the plan is the implementation.  WIB has assembled several local leaders and the support of Director Rod Nunn, Division of Workforce Development.  Nunn sees the potential for change in the “Southeast Commerce Corridor,” a term the initiative uses to refer to this area.  He has pledged his attention and resources to WIRED and to the changes it will bring.