Transcripts For CSPAN Education And Job Training 20140222 :

Waiting as the governors get settled around her conference table at the National Governors association. This is their winter meeting held annually in washington, d. C. Of iowa Terry Branstad will be joining us tomorrow morning on washington journal to talk about his work. Were waiting for the first session to begin, titled America Works, session and job training. The guest on the first panel of the day, ceo and chair of general electric, Jeffrey Immelt. To the be talking governor. Governor mary fallin of oklahoma is the chair of the nga this year. Governor John Hickenlooper of colorado. And later today, a look at ,omeland security for the state 3 00 eastern time. Tomorrow, a special session on growth and jobs in america with moderator and business journalist who is now with fox business network. Just waiting for the session to begin as the governors start their day at the National Governors Association Winter meeting. Who will begin in just a moment. Please take your seats we will begin in just a moment. Please take your seats. The room and washington, d. C. For the National Governors Association Winter meeting, about to start the first session of today, America Works. At education and job training. The main speaker for this panel is the ceo and chair of general electric, Jeffrey Immelt. We have been seeing shots of various governors here. Mary fallin is the governor of oklahoma and she is the chair of the nga this year. She helps put together this discussion along with the vice governorm colorado, John Hickenlooper. We should be starting any moment , this 11 00 a. M. Eastern time session. Running a few minutes late as the governors catch up on the floor at the National Governors associations winter meeting. All guests, please find your seats in the audience. The program is about to begin. Good morning. Everybody is cheerful today. Big crowd today. You tod like to welcome the National Governors Association Winter meeting. We are proud to have so many of our governors that have joined us today. Thank you for coming, and all our guests who have joined us, thank you for your participation today. I mary fallin, chair of the National Governors association. I have decided me our vice chair , governor John Hickenlooper from colorado, my good friend. The governor and i have had a great time over the last six months working together, and we want to welcome you to the annual meeting. The first thing on our agenda is a motion for the adoption of the rules of procedure for this morning. Part of the rules require that any governor who wants to submit a new policy or resolution for adoption at this meeting will need both to suspend the rule. If i could have a motion for adoption of procedures of our meeting in a second, i would appreciate it. I hear a second. Thank you very much. Second. I call for a vote. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed say nay. The rules of procedure are adopted. If you have any other proposals he would like to submit, you need to submit that to the nga staff by 5 00 p. M. Tonight. I would like to recognize our white house guests that have joined us from the office of intergovernmental affairs. Not sure if they are here yet, but they will be joining us. , from the office of intergovernmental affairs. Welcome, good to have you here. We have a very significant number of guests from our International Friends that have meeting, at our winter and i like to take a moment to recognize dan. Were joined today by the. Overnor he is president of the National Conference of governors of mexico. We appreciate you joining us today. Hes president of the national governorates governors of mexico. Also joining us is the mexican ambassador. Ambassador, good to have you here. A representative of mexicos National Governors too. We are also joined by our canadian longtime friend. I here today . Ambassador, good to see you. He also has a delegation from the canadianu. S. Group. Welcome to our canadian partners have joined us here today. We appreciate you coming to mac. Too. We have some representatives from our brazilian and chinese embassies that have joined us, our friends from brazil and china, please stand up. We appreciate you joining us. Getting a lot of great new friendships and partnerships from around the world. Of theecame the chair National Governors Association Last august, i begin working on what is called our chairs initiative. It is a yearlong process in which we began to formulate some type of initiative that republican and democrat governors can support what it is important to all of us. I chose my initiative this year, called America Works, education and training for tomorrows jobs. It is something very important for all of our governors. Creating opportunities for our fellow citizens, growing a revenue in our state. Is about making significant improvements to our Education System and workforce training program, and to help better align those programs with the needs of our businesses and labor markets. I believe this issue is critically important to our nation, critically important to our state as well as our nations economic future. Governors are uniquely person thato be a can help foster, that can help implement stronger connections between the educational leaders and employers, because in the end the governors are the ones responsible for both Public Education and also Economic Development. We are the key to that. Preparing americas 21stcentury workforce, to be competitive is an issue that not only calls for national attention, but it calls for gubernatorial leadership. That is something im calling on all of our governors to take charge and work with us on. The initiative raises the awareness about the significant benefits to individuals, businesses, steady economies were in governors act to raise their populations Educational Attainment level and better align their Education Systems and Training Systems with the likely future needs of their economies and employers. It takes good numbers. I wanted to share with you a statistic that i think is very important and relevant to not only for our states, but for our nation. Nearly 50 years ago, my parents were growing up in my small town. 80 of the jobs in our nations economy required only a High School Degree or less. 50 years ago. A High School Degree to be able to reach the middle class. Today that number has dropped significantly and today that number is 35 of our jobs in america require a High School Degree. A huge challenge for a nation, and that is why it demands a gubernatorial leadership. What we know is that of these in that 35 figure of High School Graduates, two thirds of those people who have a High School Degree in the workforce will make 25,000 or less. Tot is certainly not going get them to the lifestyle we hoped they would have and the lifestyle they could have. Or someecondary degree type of relevant work for certificate from a Career Technology type school is the new minimum to success for our future workforce. One that our employers need, one that our children need, one that are working adults need to be able to meet the demands of tomorrows jobs. Even todays jobs, emerging jobs in our nations economy, and be able to help our citizens gain access to a middleclass life and the american dream. Provide ouro students and citizens of our current workforce with the opportunities to be able to successfully navigate to that post secondary education, we are going to limit our own people possibility to be able to achieve their potential and have a higher standard of living, which is important to all governors. Through the America Works program and the initiative, we have identified a set of actions that governors can take that will improve their Educational Attainment levels of their citizens, and help realign their Education Systems, and also be able to help employers meet their demands for the jobs skills that they need. There are four policy components we have outlined in our America Works program to help governors improve and better align their state Education Training program that will help not only our employees, help our students, but also provide results for the industry that demand a talented, educated workforce. First of all, it starts at the top. It starts at the top with our governors articulating a vision, articulating a message about why it is important to be able to connect education and the workforce, and to be able to help our Educational Attainment levels in our individual states meet that minimum for a better educated workforce and skilled workforce. Secondly, we have to have good data. We have to know where were at today and where we need to be going in the future. We have to track our progress, and measure our results. Third, we need to build partnerships between the private sector and the Public Sector, and to be able to get the results we hoped to be able to achieve. We need to look at our resources in our individual states. To be able to look at the resources, funding, incentives, and to be able to ourort it and line it with overall vision and individual states, integrated vision. We launched this Initiative Last august. Since then there has been great support from both the private sector, our Education Community itself, and a great understanding as to why this is important to not only our states, but our nation in our international competitiveness. Nowhere is this more apparent than when we have had our two nga region summits, and we started out with one in connecticut, governor malloy was gracious enough. He was gracious enough to host us in connecticut. He has had a great turnout at other states and people who joined us from the governors a difference death members and other public elected officials and service members. In then we had one governor new mexico, Governor Martinez. We appreciate Governor Martinez for hosting the summit. Your last chance is coming up for the education and training summit in the great state of oklahoma. What a surprise. Id like to invite all of you to join us. Of attendees list that will be joining us there in oklahoma city. You will have a good time. Youre going to learn a lot of great information that will be beneficial to your state, go home with a to do list, be able to check it off and go back home and say, im focusing on jobs and education. Consider coming personally or send your team members to oklahoma, march 27 and 28th in our state. My priority for this initiative is to be able to provide the governors with examples, best practices and actual, tangible resources to be able to advance these goals. Many of you have already identified these goals in your state speeches. To begin that, we want to deliver on that commandment. Im pleased to be able to share with you today our first report of my initiative called America Works. This is titled, the benefit of a more educated workforce to individuals and the economy. Now you have this report i your seat. At your seat. Governors,ff, the various cabinet positions and states have worked very hard. Also find in this report not only the details of different things, but were pleased to be able to provide you state specific data. We have been working very hard over the last six months to work with an organization that will help you get very specific, about yourn data Educational Attainment levels, employers, the market you need. Its a onepage profile that provides this breakdown. It compares it with your Educational Attainment level, with your Current Population compared to other projections about your workforce, and analytics moodys analytics provided this. The educational requirements of your companys and your state. This is a roadmap for each of our governors to be able to utilize. What we find is that we have a mismatch, not only in our nation, but throughout our individual states between the supply and the talent in our state and what companies demand that they need in the years to come. Challenges us to provide our citizens with a path of opportunity to be able to work with our companies, to identify talent that can take those jobs. Like many of our governors in this room, i will frequently talk to businesses who tell me, i have job openings but i cannot find the employees to take the jobs, and i can invest more and grow more jobs, but i cannot find the workforce. Hand, i have friends and equated and says he will say to me, i cannot find a job acquiaintances who will say to me, i cannot find a job. It is an excellent report, and data we are pleased to share with each of you. We hope youll take this data back home and that you will your commerce secretaries, superintendents of education, chancellors of higher education. We are pleased to prevent this to you. Its an important discussion of aligning our students education with the needs of our everchanging workforce. Today to beproud able to entice one of our top ceos of our nation to join us in helping us lead this discussion with our governors, to hear from someone who is out investing and creating jobs and opportunity and innovation in our nation. It is Jeffrey Immelt, ceo of general electric. To us abouto talk the challenges his Company Faces when theyre trying to find employees needed for their continued growth, and to stay competitive not only domestically but internationally. Theill also lay out opportunities he sees for the private sector and Public Sector to Work Together to achieve greater success for our citizens and companies. Jeff is held so many positions, so money Global Leadership positions. He he joined ge in 1980. Are familiarhat with ge know that they have many divisions. That ge has an impending new facility in the state of oklahoma, and Energy Research center. We have a lot of oil and gas in oklahoma. We are thrilled. You havent heard that . Frome have a little man oklahoma named harold hamm, talk to you. Were joking. Year 2000, jeff was appointed president chief executive officer at ge and has been named as one of the worlds has ceos three times, and served as chief executive officer at ge, named americas most admired company. That was from fortune magazine. Its our pleasure today to have Jeffrey Immelt here from ge. Lets give him a warm nga welcome to our conference. [applause] thank you. Its an honor to be here today on behalf of ge. A lot of things i will talk about today are common across the business community. I try not to make this a ge commercial. Because the history and the breadth of the company, ive met most of you in this room. You dofor the great work on our behalf in your states, and thats really where the action takes place in our company, is on the ground and the locations we have. What i thought i would do today is put a little bit of the global context in terms of the economy, whats going on. Then i thought i would talk to investing,ceo about to give you the context of what and takeking about, governor fallins challenge on competitiveness and education. On the broad economy, we are in a world that gets better every day. Everybody wants it to be magically back to where it was in 2005 or 1997. The u. S. Economy gets a little bit better each and every day. Is not enough jobs i would say the missing piece in the u. S. Is Capital Investment by small and medium businesses, still lagging behind where you would like to see it at this point in the recovery. Stabilized. That is always good for the u. S. Of the Biggest Companies that does business in china. I would say the chinese economy continues to be strong. We think the new governments r eforms are positive. Resource rich countries around the world, these are very important countries for companies that are multinationals. We think they continue to reinvest back infrastructure and things like that. From a business standpoint, we see slow growth and volatility. You have to keep investing to grow. This is the pattern we could be in for a relatively long period of time. Its not a magic potion that will suddenly make the u. S. Go growth,4. 5 gdp although that is what we should be pulling for. Ge is the biggest Infrastructure Company in the world, one of the biggest Industrial Companies in the world. Billion industrial company, 400 billion investment, Financial Service company. We are one of the biggest patent issuers in the hi