Regional Supply Chain Education and Workforce Summits Raise Awareness Of Industry, Opportunities

By Angela Jenkins, MHI Director, Career & Technical Education | @mhi_angela

In 2015, MHI’s Career & Technical Education (CTE) program received several calls from school districts on both coasts seeking more information about how to establish their own supply chain, material handling and logistics education programs at the high school level.

Those calls led directly and regional workforce development to our participation in two different Supply Chain Education and Workforce Summits— in Bakersfield, CA in April, and in the Hudson Valley of New York in November—as well as the addition of a similar event to the already planned MHI Career and Technical Education (CTE) Educators’ Summit, held in Patterson, CA last July. Further, we’re currently assisting the Greenville, SC region as it works to establish its own educational and workforce programming.

What exactly is a Supply Chain Education and Workforce Summit, you may ask? It’s an opportunity to bring together the key players within a region to discuss the workforce needs of local industry, and how those might be met by educators and supported by govern­ment. Specifically, when a school district contacts MHI to ask how to start a sup­ply chain education program, we always encourage them to first stage such an event, and invite local business leaders.

That’s because, in our experience, the most successful supply chain-related career and technical education programs are the ones built first and foremost on a foundation of strong partnerships with local industry.

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