Regional Business Plan for Tampa Bay

Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners, Pinellas County School Board, and St. Petersburg College along with the Tampa Bay Partnership will meet from 9 a.m. until noon on Thurs., August 4, 2011 at Collaborative Labs in St. Petersburg to discuss Tampa Bay workforce issues - where the jobs of the future will come from, what they will look like, and the role workforce and education will play.

Stuart Rogel, President & CEO of the Tampa Bay Partnership, will be presenting the findings from the research phase of the Regional Business Plan for Tampa Bay. The goal of the Regional Business Plan for Tampa Bay is to create community awareness and understanding of our collective strengths, and develop a shared regional action plan to grow high-potential industry clusters as well as put the educational and policy infrastructure in place to support it.

Following the presentation, leaders from each of the groups will discuss what each entity can do to grow jobs in our community and how they can best contribute to the development of a skilled workforce to address the talent needs of the targeted industries identified in the Regional Business Plan. The discussion will focus on interaction and collaboration between the county, school boards and institutions of higher education, and Pinellas County businesses in the key industry clusters.

"Growing quality jobs now and in the future is critical to our community," said Pinellas County Commission Chair Susan Latvala. "Coordinating with regional partners will allow us to leverage our strengths and make a measurable impact on the prosperity of our community for everyone."

Dr. Bill Law, President of St. Petersburg College, said the college's mission is to understand the needs of local businesses and to provide skilled workers. "The Regional Business Plan research has provided us with extensive information we will use to target education for the workers who will support those industries," he said.

"We're excited about having a plan that lays out the potential economic future for our community and gives us a roadmap to build the best education system to support the needs of our future workforce," said Julie Janssen, Superintendent, Pinellas County Schools.

"This is what the Regional Business Plan is all about -- to set the platform on how we create jobs," said Vincent Dolan, Chair of the Tampa Bay Partnership's Regional Business Plan effort and President & CEO of Progress Energy Florida. "This historic meeting brings the right people around the table to work collectively to build a better future for all of us."

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Education

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