"Germanna is a tremendous asset" to national security

Times may be tough, but the Department of Homeland Security is hiring, a crowd of 160 was told today at a Germanna Center for Workforce & Community Education Intelligence & Homeland Security Summit at Fredericksburg Square.
DHS has a $50 billion budget for 500 programs, said summit panel moderator Robert Zitz. Zitz is a Fredericksburg native who is a former Deputy Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
He said USAjobs.org, the official federal government jobs site, lists 500 pages of DHS job openings, 79 of those pages in Virginia, Washington and Maryland. "They are hiring, but it's important you have the skills," he said. Often, career-switchers can make themselves more marketable to DHS by simply picking up a certification or taking a class. He said Germanna offers many courses that can quickly make an applicant attractive to agencies.
Germanna's Center for Workforce & Community Education is looking at broadening offerings that will help area people get DHS and intelligence community jobs.
GCC President David A. Sam said the college is continually trying to match curriculum with existing job openings. "We know that because of the 'skills gap,' millions of jobs are going unfilled because people lack the training to do them," Sam said.
Zitz thanked Sam, saying "Germanna is a tremendous asset" to national security because of the training it already offers because it allows adults asking "How can I take my life skills and what I've learned in the past and package them in a way that helps" DHS to do so quickly.
"Many people still don't know what DHS is," said panelist Scott Weber, a homeland security analyst who appears frequently on CNBC, Fox News, CNN and BBC Television and is former senior counsel to the Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. The answer is whatever it takes to keep Americans safe, he said. "Secretary Chertoff used to answer that question by saying DHS is doing its job "Every day something bad doesn't happen."
"At DHS, there are so many job opportunities in so many fields," said panelist Cedric J. Sims, a senior executive who has overseen $6.8 billion in IT investments across DHS and has also been a leader with the Secret Service. "Come to government service," he urged the crowd.
The summit provided an overview of what various agencies do, how they do it, and offered advice on how to pursue jobs at those agencies.
"You really can change the world," said Al League, a former leader in the geospatial intelligence community, member of the Senior Executive Service for Defense Intelligence and winner of the Service to America Medal for National Security and International Affairs. "You can influence people--help senior leaders and decision-makers do the right thing."
GCC's next Intelligence & Homeland Security Summit will be held May 1 at the college's Daniel Center in Culpeper.

“CHINA IS CRUNCHING US.” IF VIRGINIA IS TO COMPETE FOR GREEN JOBS, COMMUNITY COLLEGES LIKE GERMANNA MUST PREPARE STATE’S WORKFORCE

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of GreenTech Automotive, says he’s bringing 5,000 “green collar” jobs to America from China, and that he’d like for a lot of those jobs to go to Virginians. His company bought a Chinese car manufacturer and is transplanting it to the United States.

During the Greenforce Summit hosted by Germanna Community College’s Center for Workforce and Community Education last week at the Daniel Center in Culpeper, McAuliffe, said, “I’m looking for a trained workforce here in Virginia” and that community colleges must play a key role in that training or the U.S. could lose the growing competition for green jobs to emerging ecomomies such as China’s.

“Not only in Virginia, but in America, we have got to get in front of this,” he said. “China is crunching us.”

McAuliffe said he’d like to locate a lot of jobs involving construction of electric and hybrid vehicles in a part of Virginia with a high unemployment rate.

He said the site must, “have good rail access, be close to a port and have quality workforce development. It doesn’t do any good unless I can get people to work in the factory.”

Virginia Community College Chancellor Glenn DuBois said the state’s community colleges are up to the job of preparing the workforce for to fill green jobs.

“Until recently I didn’t see a huge demand for jobs, but we are now starting to see it and starting to respond,” DuBois said.
“There is much more to do,” DuBois said. “We have to teach it and prepare the workforce for it.”
He is optimistic about the VCCS’ ability to deliver in part because: “I’ve never seen a better environment for grants. And green sustainability is at the top of the list.”

Grants from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation helped fund the Germanna summits as part of the national Greenforce Initiative, organized by the National Wildlife Federation and Jobs for the Future.

“Community colleges across the country,” said Victor Branch, marketing manager for Bank of America, “are at the forefront of green growth and innovation whether it’s addressing their own sustainability, developing new curricula to cultivate the green workforce or making their campus operations a classroom by integrating sustainability into education to prepare graduates for jobs in the renewable energy and low-carbon economy.”