Final Wired program managers hired
The Piedmont Triad Partnership has completed the formation of the Workforce Innovations in Regional Economic Development management team with the hiring of Mary Anne Forehand as vice president of work force development and James "Jim" Donnelly as vice president of innovation and outreach.
Forehand, who started with the Partnership on Dec. 18, and Donnelly, who formally takes his post on Jan. 16, will report to Theresa Reynolds, senior vice president/Wired project manager. Reynolds joined the Partnership on Dec. 1.
Funded by a $15 million, three-year U.S. Department of Labor grant, the Wired project is designed to help train workers in the region's high-growth, high-wage industry clusters, and establish the Piedmont Triad as a national model for a regional total systems approach to economic development, work force development, education and entrepreneurship.
As vice president of work force development, Forehand will work with regional employers, educators and other work force development professionals to facilitate the creation of partnerships that will yield new models for incumbent worker training, entrepreneurial job creation and development of the emerging work force in the Piedmont Triad's target industry clusters.
She brings to the position more than 20 years of experience in administration, program development, implementation and management, curriculum design and training.
Prior to joining the Partnership, Forehand had been working throughout the region with the region's JobLink Career Centers in serving underemployed youth and adults and assisting dislocated workers through the state's Rapid Response Service, which provides immediate aid to workers affected by announcements of plant closings and large layoffs.
Donnelly, as the Partnership's vice president for innovation and outreach, will focus his efforts on identifying and implementing work force development and entrepreneurial programs that are inclusive of the entire Piedmont Triad, with particular emphasis given to ensuring full participation by the region's rural counties and minority populations.
He has worked in a variety of industrial, governmental and community development positions in the Piedmont Triad since moving to the region with Procter & Gamble in 1987. Most recently, Donnelly was vice president of the East Market Street Development Corp. -- a nonprofit corporation providing economic development, business development and community development to revitalize Greensboro's East Market Street corridor.
In addition to addressing staffing requirements for the Wired initiative, the Partnership has also formed the Wired Action Committee, which is scheduled to convene its first formal monthly meeting on Jan. 18.
Currently comprising nine members representing industry, education, economic development and work force development, the committee will have a lead role in the development of new strategies, activities and metrics for the Wired project and provide guidance on strategic direction, resource allocation and progress measures.
Serving on the Wired Action Committee are Steve Strawsburg, vice president of public issues, Reynolds American (chairman); Doug Atkinson, vice president for networks, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center; Larry Keen, vice president of economic and work force development, N.C. Community College System; Scott Daugherty, executive director, Small Business and Technology Development Center; Frances Jones, executive director, UNCG/Piedmont Triad Education Consortium; Robin Rhyne, president, Surry County Economic Development Partnership; Joan White, administrative director of the Surgery Center, High Point Regional Health System and chair of the Greensboro/High Point/Guilford Workforce Development Board; and; Ed Kelly, commissioner for the N.C. Employment Security Commission.