The Strategic Partnerships Committee

The WIB Strategic Partnerships committee met last Wednesday on July 18th. What a smart and dynamic group of people. Members in attendance included Peter Schiller, Ned Laubacher and Ron Souza. This week, the Chair of the committee, Peter Schiller focused, for the most part, the entire meeting on the continued development of the Strategic Initiatives outline. The outline has been a work in progress for the past several months. It outlines the WIB's vision and mission, its goals and strategies and finally, a number of specific workforce initiatives that are designed to help the WIB reach its goals and fulfill its mission.

After considerable discussion on various aspects of the outline, the group came to agreement on a prioritization plan for all of the identified strategies. Essentially, we agreed to break the strategies into four priority areas, with the first level of priority being to obtain additional resources for the rest of the plan and to acquire good data on which to make informed decisions.

In addition, the committee asked that two additional columns be added to show the progress being made on each initiative and the group/individuals responsible for seeing it through. The point was also made that we may want to consider developing each initiative with further detail which may require a differerent format for the outline/plan.

The committee asked that the ouline/plan be routed to the Executive Committee for endorsement and subsequently to the full board. All felt that it was important to obtain this endorsemet of the committee's activities. It is the committee's vision that the plan/outline will serve as the work plan for WIB staff as we move forward into the new year.

During the course of the discussion Peter informed the group that EDD's planned move to Napa has been stalled due to the failure of the Governor and the legislature to pass a budget. There is also fear that the Governor was going to line item veto up to $27 million from EDD's budget. This might have an affect on any decision to move state staff back into the County. Ron mentioned that he had run into Patrick Henning, EDD's Director at a social gathering and offered to touch base with him on behalf of the WIB. Bruce and Peter will send Ron a 1 pager on the status of the move and the reasons why EDD need to come back to the County.

In another key discussion, Ned stressed the importance of working with and leveraging the resources of other community groups that share the WIB's interest and goals. One of those groups is the Napa Valley Economic Development Corporation. Bruce agreed and said he would arrange a luncheon with NVEDC's Executive Director and their Board President to discuss possible joint initiatives.

All in all, a very good meeting!