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AD Editorial Board

Aaron Ahlburn

Managing Director and Senior Director, Research, JLL
Amy Gerber

Executive Managing Director, Business Incentives Practice, Cushman & Wakefield
Bill Luttrell

Senior Locations Strategist, Werner Global Logistics, Werner Enterprises
Bradley Migdal

Senior Managing Director, Business Incentives Practice, Cushman & Wakefield, Inc.
Brian Corde

Managing Partner, Atlas Insight
Dan Levine

Practice Leader, Location Strategies and Economic Development, Oxford Economics, Inc.
Dan White

Senior Economist, Moody's Analytics
Dean J. Uminski, CEcD

Partner, Crowe Horwath
Dennis Cuneo

Partner , Fisher & Phillips
Eric Stavriotis

Senior Vice President, Advisory & Transaction Services, CBRE, Inc.
Gregory Burkart

Managing Director and City Leader, Site Selection & Incentives Advisory , Duff & Phelps, LLC
H. Robert Boehringer, III

Managing Director, Global Location & Expansion Services, KPMG
Josh Bays

Principal, Site Selection Group, LLC
Joshua Wright

VP, Economic and Workforce Development, Emsi
Kate Crowley

Principal & Negotiated incentives Practice Leader, Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP
Les Cranmer

Senior Managing Director, Savills Studley
Marc Beauchamp

President & CEO, The CAI Global Group
Margy Sweeney

Founder and CEO, Akrete, Inc.
Minah Hall

Managing Director, True Partners Consulting LLC
Paul Naumoff

Principal, National Director of Tax Credits & Incentives Advisory Services, EY Global/Americas
Scott Kupperman

Founder, Kupperman Location Solutions
Stephen Gray

CEO, Gray Construction

A Tale of Two Systems: Linking Economic Development and Workforce Development

Neil Kleiman, Emma Oppenheim and Carl Vogel with Luke Weisberg

5-28-2009

The Seedco Policy Center's latest report, "A Tale of Two Systems: Linking Economic Development and Workforce Development," based on 16 case studies of initiatives in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Illinois, provides an analysis of common opportunities and challenges facing states and localities in their efforts to simultaneously serve the goals of economic development and work force development.

Economic recovery efforts guided by the Obama administration prioritize strategies that link economic growth with human capital development. In turn, states and localities are moving quickly to implement new programs. It is essential for long-term recovery that these programs incorporate workers as valuable inputs to communities' economic development. Seedco's research offers practitioners and policymakers useful and timely guidance as they build a foundation for sustainable and inclusive growth.

Seedco found that although employers and workers today need each other more than ever, their goals are not always perfectly aligned. The reviewed initiatives that proved most successful prioritized locally and regionally driven programming, carefully engaged businesses and incorporated their needs, and constructed program and financial models where partners share risks and rewards.

These are challenging times for economic and work force development. However, the national focus on recovery and reinvestment offers exciting opportunities to forge new and scaleable approaches. Seedco hopes this report provides useful guidance in these efforts.