Workforce Development Center to serve region

Numerous reports and summaries share what local employers already know: it’s growing harder and harder to find workers with specialized qualifications who are interested in making greater Minnesota their long-term area of residence.

 

The League of Minnesota Cities summarizes that there are “significant recruitment and retention challenges driven by generational shifts, resource constraints, and evolving workforce expectations.”

 

In other words, as older employees exit the workforce, it is difficult to find younger workers to replace them because members of the younger generations either don’t have the needed skills, or have difficulty finding housing and childcare in smaller communities–or both.

 

A Workforce Development Center that could potentially open in the first quarter of 2027 is aimed at helping workers who already feel connected to area communities acquire the skills they need to find and keep jobs without going elsewhere.

 

Funded mostly by a $2.1 million federal grant, the project makes use of a space on the lowest floor of Waseca County’s Community Services building, located at 1000 W. Elm Avenue in Waseca. The building already houses the county’s public health and public assistance departments, but according to county officials, plans are underway to create dedicated parking, entrances and reception areas for about 10,000 square feet of currently unused space on the bottom floor.

 

With the intent that bids for necessary construction work will be let early in 2026, county leaders feel like a long-recognized need is finally on its way to being met.

 

When it is complete, the center will have flexible spaces suitable for anything from teams of a few people learning machining on a computer numerical control (CNC) device, or a group of 50 or more coming from a range of regional businesses to hear from a speaker or trainer on a specialized topic. A dedicated space will be set up for youth who might be attending a “day camp” about a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) topic. Area health care workers might attend courses led by an MSU faculty member to acquire new qualifications; very diverse groups might meet to strengthen their use of artificial intelligence in everyday operations.

 

Now the county planning and zoning administrator, Tina Wilson has filled various roles in helping retain and attract new businesses to the area. She recalls talk about some sort of training center began at the city level as early as 2018. 

 

County administrator Michael Johnson remembers the project had moved to the county level by 2022. Knowing that the federal Economic Development Administration (EDA) “looks favorably” on projects which help with workforce training and retention, county planners began looking for a way to satisfy local and regional needs that would receive positive attention in the competitive federal grant process.

 

Among the appealing aspects which helped the project receive funding, he summarizes, are that it is designed to meet a range of needs, makes use of an existing flexible space, and is centrally located among numerous regional cities. Johnson and Wilson name a long list of agencies, organizations and businesses that have expressed an interest–and even excitement–about a dedicated space that can be booked both during and outside of typical business operation hours. When the grant was submitted in fall 2024, Johnson mentions, it was accompanied by many letters of support from area businesses and organizations expressing a need for a setting where both hands-on and classroom-type learning could take place.

 

Wilson suggests the space will also be valuable for activities and events meant to help area youth recognize they can find fulfilling employment and careers at local businesses and organizations, rather than focusing their plans for the future elsewhere.

 

As work on the center moves forward, Johnson says the plan is to accommodate as many ways as possible the facility can meet local and regional needs, get it built, and then hand over its day-to-day operations and scheduling to an agency yet to be determined.

 

“It doesn’t matter whose name is on the door,” says Johnson, suggesting area colleges are likely candidates. “What matters is that the space will be here and ready for use by our constituents. Local and regional needs will be met and we’ll be helping support local economies and businesses.

 

“The prospects are truly exciting.”

 

“If you are a local or regional business and you can see a way this training center will be useful to you,” comments Wilson, “we want to hear from you.”