Ginevan Talks Training, Touts Governor Douglas' Committment to Vermont Workers

Author: Jonathan White

Anne Ginevan, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Employment and Training, lends additional Middlebury influence to Governor Jim Douglas '72's administration. Douglas appointed Ginevan after her work on the Workforce Investment Board at the Addison County Chamber of Commerce.
Ginevan, a native of Pennsylvania who holds a doctorate in educational foundations, has been a Middlebury resident for 30 years. Ginevan was active in launching Project Independence, an adult-daycare program based in Middlebury, in the late '70s. She went on to become executive director of the United Way of Addison County. Ginevan also served on the board of Middlebury Union High School for six years, three of those years as chair. She remains active on the Helen Porter Health Care and Rehabilitation Center Board.
In 1996 Ginevan was elected to the first of two terms as Middlebury representative to the Vermont Legislature. In her first term, she served on the Education Committee and during her second on the House Appropriations Committee. Ginevan, a Republican, lost her seat in the legislature in the 2000 election in part, she said, because of support for civil unions. It was upon her return to Middlebury that she became active in the Workforce Investment Board (WIB).
The WIB in Addison County, also known as the Business Education Partnership, coordinates the needs of employers and workers. The board confers with local businesses about the types of employees they are seeking and the skills they desire. When employees lose jobs, often they need to be retrained to remain competitive in the job market. In some instances, the board works with Vermont Technical College on training projects.
Now that Ginevan oversees the Department of Employment and Training (DET), her responsibilities center on the management of 12 Career Resource Offices throughout the state, including one in Middlebury. These offices used to be known simply as the local "unemployment office," but Ginevan explained that the recent name change reflects the more positive role these offices play in the lives of Vermont workers. Resume writing workshops are available at the offices, and workers can also enlist in statewide apprenticeship programs through a liaison at the Career Resource Office. These programs include training for electricians, plumbers and for child care.
In addition to overseeing these offices, Ginevan spends her time in Montpelier handling unemployment insurance benefits claims and appeals on a weekly basis. She also supervises the distribution of federal money under the Workforce Investment Act , which started in 1998. According to Ginevan, her Department uses these resources for adult, youth and dislocated workers for educational and training programs statewide. Dislocated workers are men and women left unemployed by a plant closing who must learn new job skills.
The Middlebury Campus interviewed Ginevan last week about her new position at the DET.
The Campus: What experience from your work in Addison County, specifically at the WIB at the Addison County Chamber of Commerce, do you see transferring to your statewide work?
Ginevan: Working at the Chamber of Commerce certainly gave me the opportunity to work with local businesses and to understand their needs in the areas of workforce training and skill development.
I also learned how cooperatively different agencies and programs work together.
This is certainly the way that the DET should and actually does work on a statewide basis. They partner with many other agencies in order to offer the best services in the areas of training and apprenticeship programs.
I learned a great deal about how responsive our state colleges and local technical centers are in developing coursework that is appropriate for people in pursuing new careers.
The ability to coordinate and partner with education and business is what I will take with me to my new position.
The Campus: What is one goal you hope to see accomplished in your department over the next few years?
Ginevan: The goal I wish to accomplish is to put in place the proper relationship between educational institutions, businesses and funders, whether they be the state government, federal government or private resources, in order to offer the necessary training to have the very best and highly skilled workforce to meet the needs of the twenty-first century.
The Campus: Governor Douglas has committed to reviving Vermont's economy and helping the state's workforce. What of Douglas' pledge has emerged in your work thus far?
Ginevan: Governor Douglas is committed to investing in the future of Vermont. He intends to support, through additional funding, the development of new jobs through economic development and helping to provide for the education of that workforce by supporting higher education.
It is the relationship between these two areas-jobs and education-that my department must develop ... the bridge that will support and sustain the working people of Vermont.
The Governor is already supporting the DET by restoring funding of the Workforce Education and Training Fund, which wasn't funded in the last budget, and he will increase funding for apprenticeship programs that are the backbone of developing highly skilled, licensed technical service workers who are in scarce supply.
I believe the major challenge of the Department of Employment and Training is to be sure that the workforce of tomorrow is prepared for the jobs of tomorrow.