Sometimes validation takes time

I’ve been blogging for more than 10 years. My maiden blog launch occurred when I was sitting in a cubicle at a large insurance giant. At the time I was plotting my eventual escape and writing for a blog—or ranting as so much of my early blogging tended towards—offered me a venue to craft thoughts and ideas and set them down in a narrative for a growing assortment of readers. And yes, sometimes I just let it fly.

That first blog, one I recall with fondness, was developed by a co-worker named Chris. Chris was a great guy and someone with HTML and design skills. He recognized the budding writer/blogger in me—someone with a desire to communicate, especially communicate using words—so he designed my very first website and blog. Continue reading

Small town growth and vitality

Boothbay Harbor: One of Maine’s 10 prettiest villages.

Last week I gave a talk on community branding. My presentation touched on economic growth and vitality in small town Maine, and I also managed to wax semi-poetic (coherent?) on workforce development, something I’ve acquired a fairly extensive knowledge base about. More than mere knowledge, I have developed initiatives and programming that have been successful. Continue reading

The state of Maine’s workforce

Tomorrow morning, I’m delivering a presentation to the Kennebec Valley Human Resources Association—in essence, my own “state of the state” on workforce development; it’s titled, “The State of Maine’s Workforce: An Update from the Trenches.”

For the past six years, I’ve been employed by the Central/Western Maine Workforce Investment Board. The Local Workforce Investment Boards, or LWIBs as they’re often referred to, channel the federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funds, appropriating them for training and aligning them where each regional LWIB thinks they will be the most effective. A large percentage of those funds support Maine’s One-Stop Career Centers, the bricks and mortar centers where job seekers and the unemployed access employment and career resources. There are 12 One-Stop Career Centers scattered across the state. Continue reading