Speaker 1  0:00  
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to University tech partnerships with DOE, presented by Autumn. My name is Holly Lundgren. autumns online professional development manager and I will be your staff host for today. All lines have been muted to ensure high quality audio, and today's session is being recorded. If you have a question for the panelists, we encourage you to use the q&a feature rather than the chat feature. You may use the chat feature for technical questions or comments. I need to catch up my slides for just a moment. Sorry, bear with me.

Speaker 1  0:47  
There we go. I just want to take a brief moment to acknowledge and thanks, thank autumns 2020. Online Professional Development sponsors. We appreciate the ongoing support. And now I'll briefly introduce today's speakers. For Their full biographies. Please visit the autumn Learning Center where we have all of their backgrounds listed. First, I'll introduce Eric Eric Hunt is the university stem lead for the Department of Energy's Office of Technology transitions. Previously, Eric served as research partnerships manager at Brookhaven National Laboratory was responsible for legal matters at Orla con Metco and was employed at ba ba e systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Boston College, a master's degree in work and labor policy from Empire State College and a Juris Doctor from Stetson University. Professor Murat Cava salve is an associate professor at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and nuclear engineering program at The Ohio State University. He directs thermal properties of materials for extreme environments laboratory Dr. Kava salve is a phone on Tourettes is phone on transport thrusts lead for the Center for thermal energy transport under irradiate irradiation and energy frontiers research center funded by the US Department of Energy Office of basic Energy Sciences. Dr. kaphas off holds a PhD degree in physics from the University of Rochester. And prior to joining OSU he was a research scientist at Idaho National Laboratory. Jeff Barrett is a recognized speaker consultant and higher education leader on issues related to workforce development and training currently serves as the CEO of skilled KC Technical Institute and is an education entrepreneur in residence for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri. Jeff has served in various leadership roles in higher education and workforce development over a 20 plus year career, and was recently recognized as a talent champion for his leadership in leading innovative workforce programs. Prior to his degree prior to his career in higher education in Missouri, New Mexico and Colorado, Jeff worked for 16 years in the manufacturing sector in Chicago and in his home state of Missouri. Superintendent Kelly Bowers has led the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District since 2010. She has extensive public education experience and has been honored by the Association of California School Administrators, American Association of University Women, Phi Delta Kappa Phi Beta Kappa CSU East Bay, the Alameda County Board of supervisor and the California State Assembly. Over the years Dr. Bowers has worked with a myriad of community partners to cultivate stem STEAM education, and enrichment opportunities for all students, particularly young women, and those who are traditionally underrepresented as well as expand scholarships, internships, and professional development opportunities for young alumni and educators. And last but not least, Jim Jamison joined Honeywell FMT in 2015, and is responsible for the development of the site's 25 year strategic plan, and a range of disruptive capabilities across advanced technologies to workforce development, supporting nuclear weapons, global security and supply chain management center programs. Specific to workforce Jim is also the chairman of the Kansas City Chamber Workforce Development steering committee. In that role, he partners with regional employers across all segments regarding attracting, retaining and maintaining an agile, talented and diverse workforce essential to sustained growth and vitality of the region across all economic conditions. Jim earned his Bachelor's Degree in Aeronautical Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University and his master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Dayton. He holds 12 US patents. And with that, I will go ahead and turn it over to our distinguished panel. Welcome Eric, Jim, Kelly Murat and Jeff Thank you.

Speaker 2  5:05  
Thank you, Kelly, for that amazing introduction, I truly appreciate that. And I want to take the time to thank autumn for this opportunity to have the panelists come in and speak with you today. The part of the conversation that we're about to engage in, that is aimed primarily at socializing the Office of Technology transitions, university resource packet or toolkit.

Speaker 2  5:35  
Hopefully, upon hearing about the toolkit, you'll be interested in learning more about wanting to work with and collaborate with DOD. Before we go any further, I would like to take the time to just give a quick overview of our office, our office is primarily functions to move lab based interventions to market, that's our primary mission, we're also engaged in activities for outreach, and we work closely with organizations. And to foster and develop partnerships, we find that various groups are often engaged in working with a particular laboratory or one aspect of DOE. But they're not familiar with other aspects of our agency. So we thrive on that connectivity, introducing various parties and trying to build enduring relationships. And we're focused on return on investment to the taxpayer. And that's, that's our main focus and our main goal, and we support innovation to achieve that in. This is an overview of our national laboratory complex, we have 70 national laboratories and production facilities right throughout the country. Some of the labs are actually multidisciplinary in nature, others are single purpose, you'll find that the laboratories engaged in diverse research, we have labs that are concerned primarily with fundamental research, we have other labs that are engaged in applied research. And, of course, we have national security related labs. And we want you to work with this fast network, we want you to take advantage of the resources and hopefully leverage them for your own benefit. And hopefully, we'll forge relationships and we want you to work with us. We have prize competitions, we have grants and funding opportunities, we have the ability to engage in collaborative research and development activities. And of course, we also have workforce development and STEM programs that hopefully you can avail yourself. So learn more about specifically, learn more about the specific labs and how to specifically work with them and engage them the lab partnering Service website. And there's a link at the bottom of this slide, we would encourage you to take a look at that website to learn more about the available DB technologies and also how to work with the DB lab complex. I want to shine a light on a success story that we had recently. But before doing so I just wanted to point out that there are certain challenges that our nation faces that can't be overcome by government, the private sector or higher educational loan that can exist in a silo and expect to overcome many of these obstacles, we have to come together as one to really address some of these daunting challenges that we're faced with as a country. These can be national security concerns, these can be environmental issues. And of course, the current COVID 19 pandemic is a such a such an issue as well. And I would like to mention a positive story as it relates to how the pandemic was addressed early on by National Laboratory, specifically Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Early on in the COVID 19 pandemic, there was a shortage of testing swabs for the testing kits. And Lawrence Livermore brought together a consortium by bringing together a diverse talent such as higher education institutions, various other groups, private sector industry, and they essentially crowdsourced a solution. And what ultimately occurred was that Lawrence Livermore, using its advanced technology and advanced manufacturing techniques, through additive manufacturing, 3d printed the testing swabs for these testing kits. So it's just just an example of what happens and when we come together, and we bring together a diverse talent pool from across various sectors to address some of these really dire obstacles that our country is faced with currently. The university resource toolkit is aimed at various groups and organizations at multiple levels. We have some programs that are K through 12. We have others that are aimed at undergrad, graduate students, you name it, and it's our offices effort to try to consolidate the Workforce Development and STEM programming. That's a very elbow into a single document. To facilitate access to our stakeholders and the public. Before the toolkit, various parties would have to go if you're interested in learning about workforce development with DOE, you'd have to go to each individual laboratory website or each individual program office. So this is our offices attempt to actually consolidate and assemble as much information as possible into a single point of entry. We're going to try to get this link to the toolkit for you to download in the chat. If not, we have here of course, the link at the bottom left hand side of the side of the slide, what would it work to try to get that posted, so you'll be able to access it and by all means, please share it and disseminate it amongst your colleagues. We're interested in feedback. So please let us know what you think. And if there any improvements that we can incorporate into the university resource packet, that we're very eager to hear what people think. And hopefully these resources will be of some value to your organization's. In conclusion, let's roll up our sleeves and let's lock arms to really come together and really address these dire obstacles and the serious challenges our nation faces. If we come together, there's not much we can't achieve. So we're looking at DOE to support you. And we have resources to do so. So we're hoping that you avail yourselves of these multiple, numerous resources that we have be at fellowships or internships for, for students, various grants, prize competitions, and the ability to engage in collaborative research activity, through joint research projects, collaborative research agreements, and the like. So if you're actually learning more, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. And we're very eager to introduce you to various parts of DOD, and our office functions as the conduit if you will, to bring together various parties. So if you're interested in learning more, please don't hesitate to contact us at this email address, or give us a call to find out more information. And with that, I'll hand things back over to Holly. Thank you.

Speaker 1  12:18  
Thanks, Eric, a great presentation. We don't have any questions at this time. So I think we'll go ahead and move on and see if anybody has any questions I did. I should have mentioned this at the beginning. But if you have any questions during somebody's presentation, we would like to take a few moments after each presentation to answer questions relating directly to that presentation. So if you have any questions, you don't have to save them to the end, we would like to kind of address them as they come up. So please do feel free to ask your questions either in the chat or the q&a. And we'll address them as they come up after each speaker goes while it's fresh in your minds. But with that, I think we'll go ahead and do the next presentation. It looks like Jim is up next.

Speaker 3  13:08  
Good afternoon. Thank you how I just to pick up a bit on where Eric left off around coming together as one, this next presentation is going to get into that a bit. And of course, I'm the Director of Strategy and transformation for the Kansas City National Security campus. Let's take a look at the next slide gives you a bit of a rundown on our site and what we do. And of course, I work for Honeywell Federal Manufacturing technologies, we operate the contract for the Department of Energy. And as you may know, the National Nuclear Security Administration is a sub agency under underneath doe, and we are the production site for our US nuclear deterrent. And so our main focus is around how do we ensure that that deterrence is safe, secure and reliable. We have a long history in the Kansas City region you see it listed there as 70 years. Over the last five years since I've been here. We've experienced tremendous growth as have all the other labs supporting the weapons programs, easily doubling our workforce here on site. So where you see that Kansas City picture on that campus, that is our main campus, but we've had to grow and expand that. We've got nearly 5400 employees now located across a number of different sites and regions into include New Mexico as well as now presence in the state of Kansas. Let's take a look at the next slide. One of the things I wanted to talk about today is our involvement with the community specifically around workforce. So as you can imagine, over the last five years growing our workforce to that level really does take a concerted effort across To all elements of our business, one of them is to engage with our Kansas City Chamber. That chamber organization is comprised to 1600 Different businesses across our region. All of those businesses have common needs, wants and pains. And that's why they become Chamber members to work collaboratively through the community. One area that's of interest to many of them is around workforce development. And the chamber you could think of them as a convener. So they bring people to the table, they don't necessarily solve the problem, they don't necessarily find how to fix the problems. But what they do is try and convene. And so myself as the committee chair for the workforce development steering committee, I partner with other organizations. So we knit together a number of other community organizations to include the Civic Council, Mid America Regional Council, think of them as, you know, kind of the economic development or analysis arm, the full employment Council, and then a number of other organizations, nonprofit and otherwise, across the region. The mission that you see listed there is really to guide the Chamber's work to address regional workforce development using the core competencies of the chamber and the resources. So all of these members have similar concerns. It's been amazing, this journey, as we've all experienced with COVID. But prior to COVID, we had tremendous low employment here within the Kansas City region across all segments of the market. Everything was going great in almost overnight, as you know, we've gone from something like 3% unemployment to well over 11%. Let's take a look at the next slide, please. What I thought I'd do is give you a little bit of a perspective of how we're working and engaging in the community. We're really focused on how do we attract individuals to our mission. So we can't just be an island in the community, we have to be integrated into the community. And so I need a robust pipeline of diverse talent that's coming into our business. And that's across the full spectrum. So we need people that understand stem, we need people that know how to manufacture. So when we think of STEM in our world, that M is also relative to manufacturing. But how do I retain them? How do I keep that skilled, sustainable workforce in a growing environment? And that they want to continue to be in this region? And how do I position, the region and what we do at our site, in an agile way. So we're positioned for ups and downs, just like what we've seen with COVID, we knew it was coming in the sense of a downturn in one form or another, we didn't necessarily know how. And so we started to think about, well, how do we position this workforce team to be able to deal with that? And see, see the strategy there? It's really three focused areas, connecting creating and promoting and advocating connecting is, as it would imply, how do I knit together all these different organizations and functions across our region, so that we can together as Eric mentioned, come together as one. On the creative side, you know, there's things that we can do as a region that can further workforce development and strengthen the pipeline's that we all desperately need. Just as a as a point proof point of that, in our world, roughly two thirds of our workforce has zero under five years, rather under five years of experience with us, and I think that's very typical across the lack of enterprise as well, just given the amount of growth and retirees which have occurred. And so we need innovative ways to bring people into these kinds of jobs and these careers. And so we need to look at what are the creative ways to do that. And then to promote an advocate. And of course, that's not something that I can do in the role that I'm in given my affiliation with YUI. But the chamber can do that. And so they take on that role. And they identify where are the gaps? What are the policy positions that need to be advocated for across the state of Kansas and Missouri? And they will go on and pursue that. So you see the little spheres there, the balls and who we interact with? Kansas City Area Development Council, they're focused on growth, how do I attract businesses to the region? Why do I care about that as a case CNSC individual, because I need a strong region. I need ways in which spouses can find other positions in the region. So if I'm trying to attract someone to my site, their spouse is going to want to find a position somewhere in our community. I need a strong region for that. The mark the men of America Regional Council, again, we've leveraged into them around economic studies. And so we pulled data from them and we look to see, you know, how are things improving in that space? The Civic Council those are those are our top civic leaders that again, read The powerful around what they're doing with Casey rising and how they are trying to focus on the development of the Kansas City region. And then of course, the chamber that I mentioned. Next slide.

Speaker 3  20:16  
A lot of details on this slide, I won't go through all these, but I wanted to point out how we've organized ourselves. And so we have a monthly sort of meeting. And then also every quarter an assembly level meeting, which is a broader level engagement with Chamber members. But you can see the five task forces that we have listed there. And under those task forces, our volunteers from different companies from the region that support and lead and manage those efforts. We run it just like we would a program. But you can see them listed there in terms of national benchmarking and best practices. That's been a really good one for us to just look around the world to see what actually is going on. In the region. If you were to look what's happening with students graduating from high school in Missouri and Kansas, that's about 88% or so, students going into post secondary education, it drops in Missouri, down to 50%. In Kansas 69%, and students completing one year in college, it's 35% in Missouri and 45% in Kansas. So it's a tremendous leaking pipeline. And what we wanted to understand is, well, how do we get these students that are in high school that have demonstrated an interest in a capability into our region. And so we started to look at, well, who's doing it good around the country. And of course, I could talk for hours about what others are doing. But that's what that group is focused on. The other thing that we do is we take a look at one of our task forces around business to education. And we broke that out into two segments, one, high school, and how do I develop through the Kauffman Foundation, a program known as real world learning, experiential learning, but how do I give students at that high school level some exposure into different segments of the economy that they might want to pursue a career in. We also noted that we needed business to higher education, we needed better collaboration. So if I'm Honeywell, we have many ties into many universities, and they listened to us, I suppose, because we're big. But there are many businesses, the majority of which are medium, and small, that have very little voice into those communities. And so through business to higher education, we're trying to consolidate those dialogues so that the programming that's being done at the University and post secondary levels, is appropriate for the positions that companies expect to fill. business, the business is really just like what it says, How do I bring different employers together, we have a lot of construction architecture design. We have Garmin here in town, we have a number of different businesses that are unrelated to what I do. But we have many common needs around how we recruit, and we retain and attract individuals into our organizations, promotion of skilled trades, there's a tremendous gap, as we all know, within that, and it continues to worsen over time. And we work very closely with the community colleges and other organizations to try and bolster that because we're very concerned about the pipeline of skilled trades, specifically, that can support our programs. So it's great when we have good designs and science and technology. But until somebody can translate that drawing into a finished part, it doesn't really mean anything. And so in the skilled trades play a key role in that. And public policy already mentioned. So I'm going to, I'll let you have those slides, you can look at that. But we'll skip on. And let's take a look at the next slide there. We run it just like a program. So as you would imagine, you see our program charter, we've summary documents, we have very kind of diligent operating systems in terms of how we look at the milestones or what we're trying to execute. But I'd point your attention to the statement below. That is our problem statement. It's an attacks and it's really around this misalignment between the hiring needs to me as the employer, the talent that's available, the perceptions that kids have, regarding stem in particular, but also around skilled trades. And then the edge regional education systems that are you know, fulfilling that. And so what we perceived within the chambers, there's this limited workforce agility. So in right now, we're in a down economy, tremendous unemployment. 25%, for example, within the state of Missouri, small businesses will not reopen many of those businesses. Excuse me, many of those businesses are in the restaurant hospitality segments, as you would expect to arts and entertainment, that sort of thing. Those individuals are going to need to find other careers and move into other segments. And so we recognize that that could Becoming an that was part of our problem statement, this statement was written several years ago. But you can see the gaps in attraction and retention, we know when the economy was going strong prior COVID were the other issues, we don't have enough talent, we don't have enough right skilled talent for what we need. And so there's this dynamic of ebb and flow that impedes our business. So when we think about serving the needs of the Department of Energy, and what we do, or a commercial entity that wants to grow their business, you really is throttled by the available talent in the community to be able to support that. Let's take a look at the next slide, please. So you can see are kind of long range objectives. I won't read all these, but we plan to parse them out into those three focus areas of connecting, creating and promoting and advocating and we we sat down some objectives that we wanted to see happen, I would just look at the first one there around regular engagement between businesses, higher ed and K through 12, and so on, how do I bring people together that have these different perspectives about our community and what's going on with students so that we can get to this shared understanding of workforce needs? It isn't a fine line of Well, it's, you know, I just need to hire an engineer and I got an engineer, it's transactional, there is a spectrum of individuals, different capabilities and different needs that need to be satisfied. And so what we're trying to do with this sort of thing is understand what that is, an all the way down into the high school level, how do we better inform students around, you know, here are the opportunities, here's their career path, here's what a four year degree looks like, and what that means and what that career means. Here's what a skilled trades path looks like, and what that means and what are those opportunities. One of the other things we realized from these objectives is, as we started to engage with the underserved communities have some of the issues of just simple things that that we take for granted every day. But as very difficult for many around transportation is one example. The issue of COVID that's come about in our community has put pressure on public transportation, and the ability of that system to be able to serve that community to get to the jobs that they need. And so you can kind of see how these things snowball together. And they interlink together in a way that, you know, as a community, we've got to come together and solve a next place. You see the task forces, I won't go through these in detail, I think these slides will probably be provided in the in the recording, but you can see how we've defined them. And we just tried to kind of segment them. And so what we do is we ask of our Chamber members, if you're interested in getting involved in our community, and working on workforce development will point them first to these are the areas that we have. And we have people that work tirelessly on these. And it's been great to see. Next please.

Speaker 3  28:05  
Yeah, this is a bit of an eye chart. And I included two of these one from most recently, we updated in June 2020. And we did one from the prior year. But we laid down a roadmap to try and say, okay for the Kinect to create and promote an advocate, what are the things that we want to see happen? Where might the interdependencies be? What are the different initiatives along the way that we want to go after, and just some high level things around objectives, you can see, you know, on the far left, and the lower side, the business around the formation of the task forces. And then on the right side, we really want to drive to some sort of regional workforce council. So instead of a just being volunteers, there's going to have to be at some point, some people that are focused on these things every day, that can bring money to the table that can bring action to work. On next slide, please. And here you see, this was the very first roadmap that we did, and the things that are in, I guess, bold, are things that we really focused on in that first year, you know, and it really was around engaging at the state level, so that we understood where the states were at. They understood what we're trying to go after our engagement with organizations such as Kauffman, or the new Bruce Foundation, all of those were focused around, what are other people already doing so the chamber doesn't want to be in the business of reinventing or competing or somehow, you know, working against or other organizations, we really are trying to bring them together and bring it together in a way that's things like music, so that this entire region is focused in the right ways, and that we are leveraging the attributes of one another. Next slide, please. So just an example of some of the things that we share around business to this This, this happens to be Honeywell, we have a different array of programs that support everything from our engagement on the outside community, how we develop our leaders, we want all of our leaders to involve be involved in different community led organizations down to, you know, the college side. So the MSI PP diversity programs are a consortium research programs that we work with through many universities through funded research, many of that those activities turn into internships and employment down the road, we also have something called the Honeywell scholarship program. And it's really, it's the opportunity for prosperity is the acronym. And really, it's looking at kids that are coming out of high school that have an interest in STEM or STEM related areas. And we give them a full ride scholarship to a local community college. And they are able to engage in different levels of curriculum that also at the same time, they're working with us. So we've had over 30 people that have gone through that program, and it's focused on underserved communities. And there's a whole host of array of high school level projects that you see there. But again, around, you know, promoting, I'm looking at that kind of middle column, we have websites that are devoted to these scholarship programs. It's all around trying to bring attention to the opportunities that sit within the Department of Energy, in particular, and then how do we connect with them? So we've asked, for example, all of our other business partners within the chamber, please fill this chart out. And then what we're looking for is is how might we get businesses to collaborate on on specific programs to make them even stronger? And then I think I see a q&a. I think I might answer that. The question is James, have people respond to incentives? If you have a shortage of people with the appropriate skills, it seems companies need to offer much higher salaries, compensation, as well as incentive packages? Sometimes that's the case. You know, sometimes people respond to that. But I think a lot of people are looking at what's the holistic picture, when coming to a region? You know, can you find, for example, other employment in the region, if your position were to go away or your for your spouse? Or do you have sustainable communities that are affordable that you can live in? Some people, I think, think all Kansas City, it's flyover region, right. And so, you know, I'd rather go to somewhere that's attractive on the coast. Yeah, that's very expensive. And it's, you know, different perspectives of what one is interested in. So I think it's, it's a mix. And one of the neat things I'll wrap up with this about our environment is there's so many different roles that one can plug into whether you come in at an entry level skilled trade position, we've had people work all the way our current vice president of program management, started out as a machinist here. And so you know, if you want that kind of career, that kind of career is here.

Speaker 1  33:28  
Thank you. I did get a couple of questions via chat for you, Jim. The first one, I know you addressed the one that came in the q&a. But the first one was, how can University tech transfer offices get involved in your advocacy programs? Would we reach out to you what would the involvement look like from those of us in universities?

Speaker 3  33:50  
Yeah, definitely. So we do have a tech transfer leader here. His name is Andy Meyers. And Andy leads that program for us. So he would be, you know, the first point of contact, or certainly they can contact me as well, and I can connect them.

Speaker 1  34:05  
Great, thank you. The other question I had was, are you aware of similar steering committees in other areas? And any advice on how to find or start winning locally?

Speaker 3  34:17  
Yeah, so we do have some advice on that then. And our studies, there's been many other organizations that have been involved in similar sorts of activities, and some are much stronger than others. And I think Jeff will give you some perspective, certainly around Denver and his experiences there. But some of the takeaways that we've noted from other cities that we've been looking at is the emphasis on data, the role that data plays and understanding, you know, how are things flowing within the community and what is it mean is a critical part of a strategy that needs to come together? The other is on the strengthening of the pipeline from K 12 all the way through to the college side. And as we all know, there are many Different activities all well and good. Many times they're not working together, the chamber in our case has been a way to convene that and bring those people to the table. The other one I would just kind of hit on would be around strengthening public partnerships, just like what I've demonstrated between Department of Energy and our chamber. That's a public private sort of partnership, that a sense with other organizations. But that's something that you've got to get out and engage in a more structured way around that. The last thing that I'll mention around this is that, you know, some of you may have heard of the Kansas City Chiefs or the Royals. But what I would say is, is that those are important organizations in the sense that they give it a perspective around the brand of the region. And so why do I want to come to that region? And oftentimes, as human nature, people first think of, well, the amenities are what's there, the you know, so use those things as you see fit within your region and do that through organizations, such as the chamber or others that help promote that.

Speaker 1  36:09  
Great, thank you so much. I think with that, we'll move to our next speaker, who I believe is Professor kava salve, is that, is that correct?

Unknown Speaker  36:21  
I think it's Kelly Bowers.

Unknown Speaker  36:23  
Oh, are you okay. Okay. Dr. Bowers, go ahead. Thank you.

Speaker 4  36:28  
So it's morning for me, I'm in California. And so I'll say good afternoon to everybody else, I believe. So basically, I'm approaching this from a few perspectives. I am the superintendent of the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. And we are definitely a key partner and beneficiary of all that the National Laboratory the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has to offer. But I also approach it not only as a superintendent, but I'm the co chair for the innovation tri Valley, which is our regional workforce development program. And in that sense, we work on cradle to career which is taking young people from the very beginning, all the way through their the pipeline of future careers, and certainly STEM is is key. So just just a little bit of a lens of what we're coming through, to piggyback on what was said earlier, as Eric mentioned, the investment. So we talked a lot about investment, you can invest in real estate, which could be, you know, a little risky, and the stock market may take a risk. But if you invest in education, if you invest in young people and their future, then you know, that will pay dividends not only for the individual, but for the economy and society as a whole. And I believe the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory understands that and they don't just talk about it. They actually make it happen by consciously and intentionally investing in our young people. And we are the primary beneficiary because we are located in Livermore, which is where our lab is, but they actually have a very strong regional presence and, of course, a national presence. So so I'm going to speak from our experiences, but I'm sure that replicated elsewhere, because they're incredible partners. To give you the one example, a longtime board president for us, Dr. Bill Dunlop, that's a true investment. He was on our school board. So we had that constant press presence and visionary presence on our school board, which helped us start a lot of these partnerships, which have continued and lasted even beyond his tenure. So Livermore, what about Livermore? We have 14,000 students on 18 campuses. And we are a little eclectic. We have certainly a lot of our young people have parents who are lab employees, and they have PhDs that are highly educated. So they want education for our students. But also we have we're in the vineyard area, and we have a robust ranching and ag community. So we have quite a few students who are underserved traditionally, they don't have a lot of high educational background, we have migrant students, and we have families who, who live in poverty. So about 26% of our students are identified as living in poverty. And so they also value education. They haven't had the opportunities that many of our lab employees and have had for their students, but they still value education. And I think that's where we all come together, just as James was saying, we need to all come together around something. So we come together around STEM education, and education in general. So just to kind of bring to life some of the things we've done. In addition to the traditional offerings, we have science education, and we have specialized programs that focus on the environment, biotechnology pathways are cybersecurity. We have robotics, and then of course, ag science. Our elementary science curriculum begins really young. And we're fortunate that our parcel tax and our local community has supported science specialists who come into the classroom with high degrees in science, and so they augment the regular classroom instruction. And then we have Project Lead the way this is a TK 12 program. That is phenomenal and it's actually grooming our next Our next engineers, so the students start very young using CAD and their iPads, and they work their way all all the way through our system and then feed into the universities, we were very fortunate with Project Lead the Way the lab was a key partner in our applications for funding, as well as for grants. And so that's where we see the laboratory, always enhancing whatever effort we are making and able to come forward. Our Green Engineering Academy is one of our pride points in Livermore. This is a cohort within a cohort at a school of over 2000 students, where are they go through for their four years in a small cohort group, they have exposure to all elements of engineering, as well as the ability to beat into internships with universities, and it's a laboratory. And then we have the annual district Science Odyssey, which is something I actually started with some science teachers many years ago in a different capacity. As a, I was a teacher leader and a curriculum director. And so the laboratory was our initial partner. And this was the science fair, many of you know, the science and engineering fairs that ended up in the international company, competitions. And so we started this, and it became now an annual event, that is all things science, including attraction show, and demonstrations, as well as the traditional scientific inquiry process. Next slide, please. And so this is another pride point that we have, we actually have such an incredible partnership with the lab, that when we had the opportunity, which is very rare to open a brand new school, we went through a process of naming the school through our policies, and became Lawrence Elementary. So right next to the Lawrence national laboratory, we have Lawrence Elementary, and of course, the mascot is a Labrador. So they are the Lawrence lobbies. And our director at the time of the laboratory was Dr. Goldstein, you'll see our mayor there, we are all part of the ribbon cutting with our board and our city council and the lab presents. So it's really an amazing tribute to the fact that we are so integrated with the laboratory and they support everything that's education in our community. Next slide, please. So some other ways that I can talk about, they bring real world expertise right into the classroom. So the top science volunteers, these are retirees. So it isn't just the current lab employees that contribute. It's also our retirees, they come back into the classroom, particularly in the middle school, and they bring all of their expertise to make science come alive for the students in the hands on experiments. And they also learn a lot too. So it's interesting, they came in the lab scientists came in initially to help our students, but what we find is that they gain a lot also, they, the lab scientists, some of them are my friends and my rotary group. What they will tell us what they learned too, is how to take very intellectual concepts, and make them something that a young student can understand. And so they bring it to life. And they learn a lot about what's coming in the future generation. They also learn to model the inquiry process. So they listen to the students questions. And they don't always give them the answers. They help guide the students through that national natural process. We have in person field trips, which are incredible. And of course, now with the distance learning and the COVID. We've transferred a lot of that into the virtual but the lab did not skip a beat, they make sure that our students are still very connected, even if it's virtually, this also allows them if we don't have funding, which actually the lab will sometimes provide funding for buses to get the underserved students to programs. But if we don't have the funding for all of that, then we can actually get more students engaged and involved the virtual field trips with our laboratory. We have amazing Girls Who Code programs. This is an area of strong passion of mine, of getting more young females into higher levels of computing. And AI just last week was part of a program where there were probably 20 mentors from the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. These are ranging from some of the first initial Trailblazers females who were the first in their fields when computing was taking off in the 60s and 70s. And then now we also have our more recent graduates and young alumni who are mentoring our young students. And so it's really exciting because that's a growing field. We're near the Silicon Valley. And we see that the students will have a strong presence and many female mentors and role models. Then we have math counts, these are high level competitions. And our laboratory folks come in and they don't just serve as judges and announcers, they actually are coaches. They are coaching students through every level of the process. And these are students at all of our middle schools, which is exciting and then the robotics events. I think I think it's a little bit of both. I think our students sometimes coach the coaches because they teach them things they hadn't even thought of, and we we really enjoy that piece of it. And then we have internships and externships. And our teachers have the opportunity through through open campus, excuse me. Our teachers have an opportunity through open campus experiences, to go into the laboratory and receive very specialized professional development. And then I actually get an opportunity to recruit right from those specialized programs because we know that math and science teachers, particularly in the highest levels, are are hard to come by, and the lab helps us recruit.

Speaker 4  45:29  
Next slide, please. Some of the exciting district events I mentioned the Science Odyssey, we have calculus camps stemmed day Manufacturing Day, one of the earlier presenters talked about the importance of the current technical education and the skilled trades in manufacturing, manufacturing definitely brings all of those folks together. And that is also with a national presence. We have career days where many, many people from the lab will come in and share not just what they do on a day to day basis, but how they got to where they are, which definitely gives students an idea of the pathway that they may want to take as they pursue their careers in STEM. We have an African American scientific forum. And we also have the society it's called the Association for black lab employees. So we have students who are African American, they're underrepresented in, in general. And so they have mentors who are able to take them through the processes that they went through in order to get their education and to become gainfully employed. And it really helps our students to see these role models. Ask a Scientist program. It's an amazing program where the students have questions, they get to eat dinner with them when we before COVID. Or they can also do it through virtual means. And pretty much any question that they have, they can ask a scientist, or they can ask how they can find the answers, and then go through an inquiry process. Expanding Your Horizons is a regional opportunity for our students, as well as others in our region, to particularly focus on young girls again, in STEM. And I think we've done such a good job that now we probably have to refocus on some of our young boys, because we definitely have an increased amount of young ladies who are interested in the STEM fields. And we see that happening now that our highest awards for science have the last few years gone to young ladies, which is pretty phenomenal. There is no gender gap in Livermore. And it's mostly due to the work of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab directly in our schools. And then of course, they give scholarships and donations, our MakerSpace every elementary school has a makerspace where students have hands on experiences, they helped restore a planetarium with which our top scientists run. And some of you are recall the solar eclipse that was our first day of school a few years back, our laboratory donated funds that went for every student and staff member to have safety glasses so that we could all experience that wonderful, most memorable first day of school. So these are just some amazing examples when we ask how the lab can support us than the lab also asks us how can we support you. And it really is organic, because as we go along, we may not have anticipated some of these things coming up. But but when we asked they stepped forward, they have been are nominated every year to be our partner and friend and education. And they've won quite a few years that honor. Next slide. And so live Memorial Day, some of you will know we have an element and our students, we have a Livermore high and many of our students thought it was named after their high school, but actually some of our but it was a new element. And we have a day where we celebrate that throughout our city, which is very exciting. And our students are showcased. Our students who excel in science and math, and in the STEM fields are also showcased on that day. So it really is a community wide celebration, and our chambers involved. We have an innovation fair where our entire downtown comes together. And we have so many booths and demonstrations and students who are mentoring other students to demonstrate their scientific prowess. And it's really exciting people come from all over science on Saturdays, we fill our local theater with actual scientists who take on these amazing things. And they work with our teachers to present to students and our students and their parents come in on Saturday, it's always standing room only. It's such a success. The quest Science Center is a new budding Center, which is coming up. And our lab is a key partner for them. And we have something that they're working on right now, which is a scavenger hunt through our city as soon as COVID allows everyone to go out and it's focused on STEM and math, mathematical problem solving, as well as taking you through key points in our city. So they'll get to know their community. The lab is a strong presence in every organization in the city, that we actually you can't go anywhere, whether it's the chamber or the rotary or the local service groups. They are strong, strong presence and partners. You And of course, as I mentioned, the mentoring and the grants. So there is the monetary part, which we always appreciate. But there's also this other piece that comes with it, which is serving as role models, and really helping make the stem careers a reality for students, instead of being something that is separate. It's something that is part and parcel to everything about our community, and our school system. Next slide, please. And so just in closing, I'm going to share a few of the most memorable experiences, a picture's worth 1000 words, hopefully you can see our students. But one of the most memorable experiences was a few years back, we had an opportunity to apply for a NASA grant, and have our students actually connect in real time with the space shuttle astronauts. And we applied for this grant, we were told right up front, that we probably couldn't get it the first year that many of the school districts that it applied, or the region that applied would have to apply multiple years to get on a waitlist to possibly win this opportunity. But our lab came in, they connected with the Department of Energy, they made sure that we had a strong application. And our students actually were able at our most impoverished school to connect live via via Comcast setup. With the space shuttle, what was even more memorable was that some of our students who are first language, Spanish speaking, were able to speak to one of the astronauts who spoke Spanish as well. And we were all able to experience that. So it was a life changing event, literally transformative. And I think that's what is amazing about the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is they are transforming students futures and their lives, they're making it a reality. And they're giving every child that opportunity to become whatever they want to be. And most of the fields where they'd like to go are in STEM. So it really is something that we're we're just extremely fortunate and, and we benefit so much from and then of course, you'll see our students here, that there isn't anything that they can't come up with that the the lab will not help make sure that it's safe, and well thought out. And our students are learning to experiment, be creative, to design things, and also to troubleshoot. So when I look at all the issues with COVID, and all of the problems in the world right now, I have no doubt that the future is bright for our students, because they have such great minds, working with them to help them become true problem solvers. And I think that concludes my presentation.

Speaker 1  52:39  
Thanks, Kelly. I did have a question come in for you. Did you approach the lab to partner up? Or did they approach you? And how did you convince your board to approve this as your mission?

Speaker 4  52:53  
I you know, that's interesting, because I think it was almost an organic ecosystem, but but they do have public relations, actually, Nadine Horner is amazing. She may even be on this call. So they have a public relations person who does direct outreach, as well as from way back in the day when I was in curriculum, it was someone named Dick Farnsworth who had that role. So they always have an education person. But I'm, I'm the kind of person that I constantly reach out to everybody. And so when those other capacities as a curriculum director, I would also reach out. So I think it was we came together. But there is an official position of our lab that they will work with their local community, and engage in education, and that comes from their director, and from their philosophy as well. As I said, in our, in our community, we we reach outside, I don't really know what came first, it just seems like it's just a connection that is so ingrained that it will outlast me or the person. It is just what we do. It's how we how we approach everything in education. Thank

Speaker 1  53:59  
you. We have another question. I'm Dr. Bowers, could you tell us a little bit about engineering and at the kindergarten level?

Speaker 4  54:06  
Oh, certainly, that's so much fun. I actually had the opportunity to go into some of the classrooms when we could. So we, one of the classrooms with the Project Lead the Way in the kindergarten class, we came in and the students were making just a very traditional, probably what all of us made when we were little paper airplane. So the students, normally you would just take a piece of paper and you start to design your airplane, but instead they started with an iPad. And they started to play around with their mini CAD designs and how to design it, then they did create it. And then they tried to fly them. And then they were allowed to plot they go back to their computer, and they would plot where they landed and how far they went. And then they would make adjustments and so this was kindergarten, which is pretty phenomenal to see how they would take the concept but then they would also go back and and look at their data. And then um Make adjustments. So really emulating the entire process of design. Now we have 3d printers for thanks to our Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory support. And some of the other local agencies will step up when they see what the lab does. And other groups like our universities and our colleges will, will give to that. So now they have 3d computers. And the students are designing their, their paper airplanes, now they're making them through the 3d. So that's just one example of a kindergarten

Speaker 1  55:26  
class. Very cool. Thank you. I have one more comment just to make that I got in a thank you for your work to advance some education at all levels. And this person would like to see more superintendents with that commitment. So thanks. Thank you. I think with that, we'll move on to the next presenter. I think now Dr. Kravis off is up. Am I up? Nope. It's Jeff. I'm sorry. Jeff Barrett's up, we'll hear from Jeff. Thanks. Great.

Speaker 5  55:51  
Thank you, Holly. And thank you for this opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subjects in the skilled KC Technical Institute. So pretty impressive panel. And it's great to see the exciting work that's happening and workforce development, STEM education etc. And I want to start by just talking about skilled KC Technical Institute. So we are a private nonprofit affiliate of the Kauffman Foundation. I was brought here from Denver, Colorado, where I lead and award winning public Technical College started about 8000 students in designing, you know, nimble, response industry responsive and align technical certificates for the Denver Metro region. And we are located in Kansas City, Missouri. And what's unique about this region is that we straddle a state line. So the skilled Kc is a startup post secondary institution. That is part of the real world learning initiative that Jim mentioned. As part of the Kauffman Foundation, we are licensed to operate in both Kansas and Missouri. Our main campus Tipperary main campus is located on the Missouri side, and our mission is to equip and empower individuals to work, live and earn. Kauffman Foundation like myself recognize that there are many pathways to success, especially in entry level positions in almost every industry vertical in this country. Our mission is to I was brought here to design and launch a new type of institution that delivered non degree stackable credentials in the most in demand occupations in the Kansas City region. We started with what our first of three pilot program software development September 8, we launched that program COVID-19 shifted our delivery model from face to face and our three programs to virtual for our software development program we launched at the end of September September 28. Our advanced manufacturing program, which is a blended hybrid program, and the hybrid component has a face to face for the labs as well is a very intentional synchronous element for our online virtual learning. So in other words, our instructors are using a very active video conferencing educational tool called Big Blue Button as part of our learning management system to engage students in real time in a synchronous environment to ensure the success happens at all level of engagement. Our biotechnology lab technician program launches at the end of October. Very excited about this program. COVID-19 again, has raised awareness across the life sciences and the biotechnology program is not only serving a very robust Human and Animal Health Corridor here in Kansas City. In fact, a lot of people don't know that. The Animal Health Corridor in this part of the world is probably the strongest research and clinical both clinical and manufacturing area in the United States. Future plans, post pilot as we launch or to develop a main campus, and part of that main campus is to develop some really great entrepreneurial incubation lab space, a makerspace, if you will, so we can get entrepreneurs in Kansas City as well known as an entrepreneurial community. The Kauffman Foundation has a very active nationally recognized entrepreneurship program, Million Cups, million, 1 million cups comes to mind. A lot of people might know what that is, and really working in areas, you know, like opportunity zones, because we want to serve underserved overlooked communities that haven't been mentioned as well. Our goal is also once we get proof of concept and the pilot programs that we're launching is to potentially scale statewide why not have a skilled St. Louis or skilled Springfield and even nationally and moving in markets that we work with companies not only with the Department of Energy, let's say or Honeywell, but let's say a key wind engineering has operations across the United States. How do we partner in moving training entities that pop up in these communities that have talent gaps, just like the Kansas City region. We also want to serve to Kelly's last presentation our dual enrollment population we plan on doing that, in the fall, have an opening that up for our programming in the fall of 2021. Again, working with a real world learning initiative, a coffin they're working with, I don't know, 2630 school districts across the region to develop these market value assets at the high school level, how do we transition them seamlessly in our programs, and also and have a placeholder in this, working with our post secondary peers to articulate the stackable credentials that we bring, you know, into the entry level world as well as bring them back for other experiences and develop that portfolio that can articulate into a two or four year degree, whatever is applicable in their in their career path. Next slide, please.

Speaker 5  1:00:42  
And why skilled? Casey? Well, this is really tied to both our prospective students and our lifelong learners, those students that will come back to us for additional credentials, once they get that entry level cert that leads him into that great position here in the Kansas City region. Also our employer base, our community based organizations, and again, as I mentioned, our higher education peers, we want to actively work with those entities to create opportunities and, and access for students in the Kansas City region. We're hyper student focused in Denver we had when I left and 84% completion rate and 81% placement rate in our across our institution as well as we graduate our students debt free. The Kauffman Foundation loved that model and said, How do we replicate that success here in the Kansas City region, because we don't want to be part of that 1.5 $1.6 trillion student loan debt. So we're very focused in serving 40% of our target demographic and students served are from these overlooked underserved communities. Holly, you mentioned? How do we get more females in the gender gap in the STEM careers, our first cohort, soft develop software development had more females than males. And I'm very excited that we're attracting females into that industry, because that is definitely an underserved gender gap as well. We also are very employer driven. And my last comment about our 40% Target, every company has what I call a ready Initiative, a race equity, diversity and inclusion. Every company I talked to not only in the Kansas City region, but at Denver, New Mexico, and other areas that are working in this country. All have this initiative, we are hoping through eliminating some of the barriers to success for individuals here in the Kansas City region. We can work with companies in meeting their targets in that area as well. Our programs are based on regional job market. Yes, it's great to get that bureau of labor, labor, management statistics data. We also want to focus on the regional data that Jim mentioned in his presentation. How do we work with the area Economic Development Council? How do we work with a Mid America Regional Council? How do we pull this information and Kansas City is doing a good job of finally starting to build that ecosystem. This existed in Denver, because we had a governor at the time Governor Hickenlooper. And when I was involved in training at Mr. Griffith, we had this ecosystem built in the Denver region where we could collaborate more effectively and efficiently and building resources without creating redundancy as well. Employers define priority professional and I'll talk a little bit about the professional side and the technical skills. So in other words, our curriculum is Mac map backwards in a backward design from what employers need. We also have advisory boards for each one of our programs. And we haven't even launched biotechnology yet. But we've met at least six times with our industry groups to make sure that we're on track to deliver the curriculum that they need for these entry level positions and beyond. We also have a differentiator with the skilled KC model in what I call our skilled three E. Curriculum. This three e curriculum is that entrepreneurial mindset. So think essential skills, what's also known as soft skills, professional skills. So we want to make these more intentional in the delivery throughout our curriculum. So we have mapped these skill developments such as creative ideation and problem solving, empathy, these behaviors and attributes empathy, curiosity, how to communicate effectively in teams, we intentionally map that to our technical competencies. It happens organically a lot of the times in training opportunities, but we want to intentionally use it more so that we can not only exhibit that throughout the curriculum, but also upon hire and when they go through that interview process and talking about their capstone projects, their interpret internships, their apprenticeship opportunities that they have. We also one of our big targets is to how do we upskill incumbent workers that exists? So I'm working with entities like the Department of Energy or Honeywell that's on this panel? today? How do we look at their incumbent workforce that need these short term micro credentials, to pick up additional skills to make them successful as their business model and practice changes? You know, you think about software development, and how we keep it from offshoring into countries outside the United States. Well, how do we open up other markets like Kansas City, which is a growing tech market and create up For two years working with companies on the coasts, to develop that enterprise model and developing these remote teams, again, COVID-19 is really illuminated the effectiveness of this. And really, it's not just a trend, folks, it's going to be a reality as we move forward in the business models of 21, and blah, and and beyond. And we're constantly working with companies to see how skilled KC can serve as an intermediary, working with companies to develop opportunities not only for high school kids like Holly was talking about, but also to develop opportunities for their incumbent workforce and the entry level workforce where they see talent gaps in working with their talent managers and redesigning job descriptions. Are you holding entry level jobs for pedigree not competency? In other words, are using that bachelor's degree as a placeholder where it's not really needed at this time? But yet, how do we develop career paths and working with our post secondary partners to create those opportunities within that company for them to move up? Beyond that interest level skill set, we also are working with companies on transitioning into a highly, you know, feels like automation. And working with emerging markets. Cybersecurity is one of those in which every state is growing, and the need for cybersecurity around additive manufacturing, not just financial services or, you know, even colleges are being impacted on a daily basis by ransomware. How do we create more talent in these areas along with our software development programs, so the it vertical is a is probably one of our cornerstone areas, along with every other industry work on the Kansas City region. We also want to be nimble and adaptive. You know, most hiring institutions try to be nimble and adaptive, but through systems in their within their organizations, or whatever is mandated at a state level or even in their accreditation cycles. Sometimes it inhibits that responsiveness and that nimbleness. We want to be nimble and agile and push our oversight entities like the Missouri Department of higher education, workforce development into understanding this and how do we get the approval system through really quickly when we start programs in real time, we also engage what I call the C whack model. So instead of building big, main campuses and buildings, we want to employ a hub and spoke model. Yes, we are in the process of designing that main campus space. But how do we pop up a campus working with a post secondary peer, or working with a Honeywell or working with a keyword or a Cerner or other companies or a community based organization that is doing preparation training for our programs that we're going to offer an offer, you know, that offers a space within that organization, a pop up programs in real time, didn't shut him down in real time as well. So that we're not spending a lot of money on resources like capital buildouts, and rather spinning it on student support, and success, instructional technologies, professional development, etc. So that C whack model, I think, is a differentiator for what we want to do as well. And then again, really looking at this in regional employer and student data. You know, we're we're just now starting out. So we're developing that baseline data, but we want to make sure we're making decisions that are informed by our data constantly. are we reviewing this market data? Are we understanding what that means from a job description and employability aspect? So those are things that we're constantly reviewing and refreshing throughout our, throughout our research. One thing that's come up in some research that I've been doing recently, and came up I think, Jimmy might even been this meeting in the Kansas City area was women are exiting at an alarming pace in the workforce due to COVID-19. So how do we recognize that as a post secondary institution, when these same women want to reengage and come back into the workplace? How are we working with this demographic and preparing them with the skill sets they need to reenter, or just to engage seamlessly back into it, maybe working with employers as well on job sharing programs, so maybe you can have two individuals, it doesn't have to be female, and the two individuals working on the same job, and there are successful models that are out there, I think you're gonna see a resurgence in some of these former practices in, in the workplace as well. So how do we, you know, partner more creatively and entrepreneurially with our employers to make sure that they're informing exactly what we want to do and driving the mission and success of skilled Casey. Next slide, please. This is just an example a small snapshot of a few of the partners that we're working with. I'll point out some of the industry organizations like bio Nexus, KC or Mo, bio, bio Kansas. These are collectives consortiums of industry, and companies that work collectively in driving change and informing institutions like a skilled KC on how we should be looking at curriculum development, both in our existing programs in the future. And then of course, working with companies like Honeywell who sits on our manufacturing advisory board to understand what a large employer like and highly specialized in some areas, but yet needs, you know, production tax as well. And how do we meet the needs of those individuals and not just Just on the manufacturing floor, but they also need accountants and software developers and cybersecurity etc. So those are things that, you know, we want to be informed on on a on a daily basis as well. Next slide, please.

Speaker 5  1:10:13  
You know, some testimonials. We're excited to get our student testimonials loaded on our website. And I'll load that in the chat on some information on how to access information about skilled KC and my email as well. If you want to further engage with me, carolo sits on our software development board. She's a member of our Kansas City Tech Council, the KC tech Council has been very instrumental in in connecting us not only with small startup companies in software development or in cybersecurity, but also large companies like a Cerner that employs, I don't know 14,000 People in the Kansas City region to those entities as well. Next slide, please. We also want to engage in in staffing organizations that work really, really closely with companies this this particular example, Matt sharp, Sharples runs trikon. They're an IT staffing company that works with employers, we're currently working on virtual job fairs, and how do we get back to, you know, the new normal and when we can reduce our face to face but actually have face to face and a mix of maybe a hybrid and virtual job fairs as well, in serving the needs of our students as a replacement opportunities. We're very engaged in that process with our employees as well to understand not only what the job requires, but what the culture requires as well, I think people overlook that piece. And students need to have as much information as possible on these types of companies that they're going to work for, and be successful in and bring that value. And next slide. So thank you for your time and attention today. Again, I'll put my I apologize for not my contact information on this slide. I'll put it into the chat and just open it up for any questions that might arise.

Speaker 1  1:11:52  
Great, thank you, Jeff. I don't have any specific questions for you. But thanks for sharing the case study. It's really good information. I think with that, I've been trying to hand it over to Professor Kravtsov. All day. So I think it's finally his turn. So we'll go ahead and hand it over.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:16  
All right. All right.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:21  
Yeah. My name is Maura Caesar. I'm an associate professor at The Ohio State University in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. So yeah, what I'm going to be talking about is or I will be sharing my kind of personal experiences of interaction with Department of Energy in particularly its laboratories. And it's kind of be slightly different in nature, what so far the panelists have covered, but I also should acknowledge that it is very important what they're doing, because they're already, they're also kind of feeding into our high quality students. So with that, them our activities, which can be possible. Just kind of a short overview. I just apologize from the beginning that I might have some technical details here that might be not kind of suitable for the presentation. But kind of present a video, I'm going to go over some of the examples that I have kind of been exposed to the UI, as a graduate student as a postdoctoral research scholar, scientist at the National Laboratory, and now as a research professor, and I'm going to show maybe a few examples of kind of research funding that I was getting from DOD, that allowed me to interact with researchers at a national labs. So I kind of started my exposure to DOE as a graduate student at the University of Rochester. At that point, I conducted research that was supporting my thesis work at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. So this was a unique facility located in Rochester, New York and overseen by University of Rochester. So, particular thing was that I was not my activity was not necessarily related to this to the kind of the global mission of this center, but it allowed me to get exposure to allow like environment, because I would say that the environment in this facility was where a lot like where scientists are working to addressing. One of the maybe biggest challenges of the UAE is to provide energy resource limited. So in this level of theoretical example, the major activity was to achieve nuclear reactions that are similar To what are powering or basically basically making our sun to shine, and what makes all of the stuff visible. So that's what I started to get exposure to doa. Later on, I kind of got to do some more like hands on work that was supporting the duration. And at that point, I was a postdoctoral research scholars now still at University of Rochester, and I was doing research related to carbon nanotubes. Business were kind of small particles. And the goal is to was to make photovoltaic devices are okay. So again, the fact that this was an important scientific area for the is exemplified by the fact that a lot of other national labs were working on this, which includes Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory. So all of these are funded or key laboratory support various DoD offices. So then I moved on to spent a few years at Idaho National Laboratory. And so do E. Office of Nuclear energy is the primary sponsor for this laboratory. So that's where a lot of early demonstrations of can utilize nuclear energy to produce and generate 20% of electricity that US is currently getting from nuclear. So in there, I started as a postdoc, and I was later converted to a research scientist. My primary activities were supported by Office of Science. At that time I was a postdoc, and then the junior Research Scientist for the Center for foreign energy frontier Resource Center, the same time I get some exposure to activities that were directly supporting office of nuclear energy. So during those times, I was working on various methods that involve lasers for measuring properties of materials. And these is kind of a technique that I picked up while being at the National Laboratory. But a lot of background that was necessary for this, I already started to gain during my grad and postdoc experience. So right now, basically, because of this, a unique experimental approach. This allows me to continue my collaboration with various UA labs, in particular, the Idaho National Lab, Los Alamos. So they're kind of one of the examples of my recent interactions with Idaho National Laboratory, which involve our graduate students, spending some time at Idaho, doing some research experiments, interacting with stuff at the lab, allowed us to basically develop a new instrument that allows measuring our grain orientation. So this is kind of an important thing for material scientists. I think kind of for this audience. I think it's really important to show here that these interactions with national lab allows student exchange. And eventually, this same student went on to join Idaho National Lab as a postdoc. So now, kind of as a faculty, which have been for the past seven years, Ohio State University, I have continued to my interactions with DoD labs. So right now, I'm a part of the Center for thermal energy, transport and irrigation. So this is an Office of Science Center. That includes many institutions. Idaho, in this case, is leading this research project, and includes researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and many other universities across the nation. So some of the projects that I have been involved that involve a national labs involved through the nuclear energy university program. So this is an applied program of DOD under the Office of Nuclear energy. So kind of being all of doing research that aligns with the mission of DOD labs. Allow me also to organize workshops jointly with national labs in particularly, we would have awkward The National Lab in Idaho National Lab researchers as a co organizer, and later on as a participant. So, so so far, I can just be talking about my personal experiences. But these are not just unique to me, a lot of other university faculty, especially at Ohio State University, are having similar exchanges interruptions. The Howard University is one of the largest universities in the nation, it's obviously the first one in Ohio. But we have a large research portfolio, that I always make it comparable to the research portfolio and the national labs. So I'm particularly going to kind of share maybe more common experiences with some of my colleagues and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, which is a kind of a pretty big program already. And we do have various kind of high level centers that support research activities that align with the nations of various applied UAE offices, in particular Center for Automotive Research aligns well with the e r e mission. Some of the things like Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence is also aligned with advanced manufacturing assets of the E rd office. nuclear research reactor supports activities of Office of Nuclear energy as well as NNSA. So what I represent is a kind of a small group of faculty at Ohio State University

Unknown Speaker  1:21:52  
was a part of the graduate Ph. D. program in nuclear engineering. So right now we have a faculty, and each of us individually is closely working with the labs, how having funding from DOD, and all of them will have a very similar experience like me, as in the next slide, I'm trying to summarize all of the kinds of benefits that we're getting from interacting with UA labs. The first of all, it provides us with an opportunity to send our students graduate students, as well as undergrad level students to do perform work at national labs, in some cases, it allows us actually to get for the student, our students to get fellowships and scholarships. They'll still spend most of their time at the university, but in the summer, they will be visiting the lab. And in particular, we had a students going to Idaho and Oak Ridge National Labs. So basically, those kinds of internships opportunities, allow them to perform experiments and research that might not have been possible at a university level, which typically engage some of more larger scale experiments that a lot of flaps would have.

Unknown Speaker  1:23:24  
So obviously, what is very critical for graduate level students is to have publications, so that they can write their thesis. Again, our interaction with researchers at the results allows that informal step. And eventually, most cases, the same students who have been doing research under the DoD fellowships or new responsive research will end up joining the same national labs, doing pretty particularly within a couple of past few years. Our students who are joining Oak Ridge, Idaho are gone and Sandia National Labs, and we have one of our students, even joining the DoD headquarters. With this, I think I would like to conclude my comments here, and we'll be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Speaker 1  1:24:21  
Thank you so much. We don't have any specific questions for you on your presentation. And interest of time, I think I just like to ask one question, and let each one of you answer it based on your own experiences. And that's basically can you each of you just comment on what you think is the most important first step in fostering your relationship with the DOE national laboratories. What you see from your experience as the most important first step that a university to office might be able to take.

Speaker 2  1:24:57  
Sure, thank you, Holly for the question. In my experience, the lab partnering service would be the recommended first step. Of course, anyone who has interest can reach out to our office directly. But I would suggest lab partnering.org As an initial step, to find out more about various technologies, and personnel and experts that are available across the lab complex, and then based on that contact was a contact being made, you can follow up and then start to build that rapport, if you will, and that builds relationships. So that'd be my recommendation.

Speaker 4  1:25:40  
I think my recommendation would be to reach out to the public affairs or the education arm of the local laboratory, because even we have one also a relationship with Sandia Lab, which I didn't focus on today. But that's also a national laboratory in our backyard. And that's sort of how all of those things began. But and I also would say that it works both ways, we invited the lab to come into our schools. So we had something called principal for a day. And we had key laboratory employees come in and experience what it was like in our schools. And so that became a two way relationship, which was mutually beneficial.

Speaker 3  1:26:24  
This is Jim Jamison, you know, I would suggest that we all have many common needs, wants and pains around workforce and around our ability to connect with universities and programs such as skilled Casey. And I think, you know, TT could certainly help maybe pull some of that together. Maybe there's opportunity to better collaborate around what the needs are of the labs, plants and sites, and who can provide them out in the communities.

Speaker 5  1:26:58  
Yeah, I want to piggyback on this is Jeff Barrett. on Kelly's comment, too, I think reaching out to the appropriate folks at the DOA would be really helpful. I noticed there wasn't a lab in Missouri. We got to fix that maybe. And, you know, what are some of those positions that an entity like skill KC could serve from a DOD perspective from a talent gap? As well, I think that information would be helpful. And then just learning more, you know, I benchmark every day, lots of things and hearing from, you know, the experts on this panel, how do we benchmark some other best practices that are happening at Livermore, Lawrence labs in the school district there, those are, those are things that I would suggest.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:41  
Yeah, and the kind of at the university faculty level, I think the most productive way that I found is actually attending the conferences. That's where kind of everyone comes together, which is actually might not be quite possible at currently. But before prior to COVID, I think that was the most productive way is attending the conferences, and it kind of really provides a good avenue for networking, and basically starting initiating the discussion, post, like some kind of a presentation of do a researcher.

Speaker 1  1:28:15  
Great, thank you. I think with that, we'll probably just about close it out. Before I close it out, does anybody have any parting thoughts or comments they want to make?

Speaker 2  1:28:27  
I just wanted to thank you, Holly and autumn, for this opportunity. And I think the message is, together, we can accomplish big things. So hopefully, this is this panel has sparked some interest in the attendees of wanting to work, or at least learn more about working with DOE. And I just want to thank the panelists and autumn.

Speaker 4  1:28:50  
I would just like to also thank everyone. And I'd like to offer up that if there is a partnership that I can help model with anyone who's interested from the K 12. side, I'm very open to speaking to other superintendents about how to make those first inroads and you know why reinvent the wheel, if there's something that we've done, that has worked, we're happy to replicate and share. So I'll make sure that my emails, it is available for people as a follow up, and I'd be really happy to talk to anyone because sometimes they may not realize how how to take those first steps and actually, how then it just takes on a life of its own.

Speaker 5  1:29:31  
Yeah, I agree, Kelly, and then we, you know, real learning initiatives are working with 2630 school districts. And I know that STEM is a big piece of that. Prep Kc is another entity that's doing a lot of that work at the at the high school level of how we create more market value assets at the secondary level. So I'll be connecting you with the team on that side of the house as well. And thank you for the opportunity to autumn and to DOE Eric, for letting me participate today. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1  1:30:03  
All right. Hope I'm not cutting, cutting anybody off. But thank you all so much. And we really appreciate you taking the time out today to share your experiences and your expertise. And extra special thanks to Eric for pulling this great panel together. What a wonderful range of experiences and people. So I've, I've really enjoyed this a lot myself. Thank you. For all who've attended today, we hope you found some great takeaway information. And just a reminder, that recording of this webinar as well as a copy of the slides will be available for viewing within the autumn Learning Center are on the autumn website within just a couple of days and access is included with your registration. There will be an evaluation that will pop up when you close out of this today. So just if you could fill that out, that really helps us out and without further ado, I'll go ahead and say This concludes our program for today. Thank you so much for joining us, everyone and really have a great afternoon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai