of these difficulties, those who took up the challenge of making CETA work have had remarkable initial successes. Hearing these stories cannot help but convince the subcommittee of the program's value.

Mr. Charles Rae will tell us of his program first.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES J. RAE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE PRIVATE INDUSTRY COUNCIL, INC. AND MANAGER OF MANPOWER FOR THE GREATER SPRINGFIELD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.

Mr. RAE. As director of the private industry council in Hampden County, Mr. Chairman, I am responsible for its overall administration. We feel that we have a private industry council that is typical of the way a private industry council should run. We have all the key elements to provide a proper setting to train disadvantaged individuals for private sector jobs.

We are established as a nonprofit corporation. We are independently managed by the Chamber of Commerce. Our staff consists of seven individuals with one purpose, to influence the supply and demand of skilled labor, to train people for the jobs that are available in industry today and there are jobs available; I have several exhibits here which will document that.

We have gone far beyond the scope of title VII legislation. Besides the programs run with title VII funding, and machine programs that train approximately 215 disadvantaged individuals, we utilize private sector funding, additional funding to train and place people in our Hispanic community into private sector jobs.

The key to our success is private sector involvement. We have a board of 37 individuals. These people, for the majority, are from business. They have expertise in what their company needs. They know their particular fields. They know what their labor market is.

Because of this, we have been able to effectively interact with these companies for the purposes of industrial expansion. A key part of our program is economic development. When companies are willing to expand, or when they want to expand, when they need people, they need a vehicle to convey their needs to the public sector. We are this vehicle in our community.

For many years in the Hampden County-Springfield area there has been no vehicle as the private industry council that is useful to the private sector in identifying all sorts of education. We have a triad approach. We work with schools. We work with the CETA training skill center. We work with junior colleges. We feel to effectively satisfy the needs of industry, you must impact on all levels of education and training. We feel we have successfully done this.

I would like to give you a couple of examples. Several months ago we met with area educators for the purpose of explaining to them the plight of machining companies in Hampden County. There are several hundred jobs open in our community paying in a range from $5 to $8 per hour. They are unfilled, and the machines are idle. We have a large number of disadvantaged people in our community, and those people could be running those machines.

We found, when talking to the prime sponsor, when talking with educators, they did not understand the needs of industry. They did not understand what business really wanted. By meeting with them, and serving in an advisory capacity, we have been able to put the total system together in the Springfield area for the purpose of placing people into meaningful employment.

We feel this is the essence of the private industry councils; impact supply and demand of labor, place people in private sector jobs, utilize the skills of the private sector, utilize the complete community, and provide job opportunities to the disadvantaged.

I would like to read a letter. These are four letters from key companies in our area. I will just take excerpts out:

These machines sit idle for one or two shifts due to the lack of skilled machinists to operate them. I strongly urge your support for the development of skills training and skills upgrading programs to meet current and future manpower needs.

Skills upgrading is a subject that has been seriously considered by the machining industry, and one that offers unique opportunities to both employers and employees. Through a formal training program aimed at upgrading skills of entry-level employees, a company will be able to upgrade its workforce, while substantially reducing training time and costs. Moreover, with this upward mobility, additional entry-level positions will be created for minority and nonskilled trainees, who will in turn benefit from the process.

This company is American Bosch, a division of United Technologies: This manpower shortage severely hampers our company's ability to expand. It is currently a problem, the magnitude of which drastically affects our current production capabilities. It is for this reason that we fully support the Private Industry Council, and its efforts to increase the training capacity of area facilities, thus balancing supply and demand.

The point that I am trying to make, Mr. Chairman, is that the private sector has a need. If they become interested, and the private industry councils can serve as a focal point, they will indeed respond to the needs of the public sector.

I have here clippings from various articles that have appeared in our local newspapers. One is for a Hispanic employment program. It is a program created with private sector funds, private sector expertise. We have been in business for 2 months with this program, and we have already placed 50 individuals in private sector jobs at a very low cost. This is true private sector initiative.

We feel that being a nonprofit corporation, we can go beyond the scope of title VII. We can train people, and we can place people using the expertise of industry.

We have worked closely with the school departments. I have here some clippings: "Industry pleads with schools to train machinists.” "Demand for machinists outlined to educators." We have had a good response. The educators are willing to work with the private sector, but they have not had a focal point. We feel that our private council is this focal point.

Thank you.

skills center history

The Hampden District Regional Skills Center was founded in 1970 in
the former Rex Chain Belt facility on Plainfield Street, Springfield The
evolution of a self-contained manpower training program came as the
result of a series of meetings between Frank D Gulluni, Edward S
Kosior Director of Putnam, and Springfield School Superintendent
Dr. John E. Deady. Prior to this point the training component had
been housed within the existing Putnam Vocational Technical High
School. Given the constraints of sharing a facility with an on-going
population of youth, a decision was made to separate the manpower
component. In September, 1970, with the assistance of Paul Brown,
Supervisor, State Department of Occupational Education, the Skills
Center became a reality The funding agent at that time and through
1974 was the predecessor to CETA, the Manpower Development and
Training Act of 1963 During the closing months of 1970 the Skills
Center opened its doors with an instructional configuration of eight
and a student population of fewer than one hundred. Program
offerings were very limited, and the recognition was constantly present
that to succeed in this major endeavor required a significant increase in
programs and population. Soon thereafter, Skills Center personnel
met with the State Department of Occupational Education and the
local office of the Division of Employment Security. Collectively, a
grant was developed and subsequently funded at the rate of
$250,000. This major breakthrough provided the impetus to engage in
a transitional stage out of which arose increased programming and
greater numbers of participants. In 1973 the Skills Center was
accorded national recognition and officially stamped as one of only
sixty accredited Skills Centers in the United States.

Within two years of the relocation to Leete Street, the Springfield Wire Company business began expanding and as a result the Skills Center was unable to continue its lease arrangement for 1975. At that juncture, and given the fact that the South End of Springfield seemed to be an appropriate location for the training population, the pursuit, once again, was on to locate adequate quarters for the expanding population of eligible residents throughout Hampden County.

It should also be noted that at this time the CETA program succeeded MDTA. The Skills Center became a CETA entity in January 1975 and almost concurrently moved into facilities in the South End located at 322 and 340 Main Street. During the following 32 years introduced into the curriculum were such programs as Welding, Sheet Metal, Machine Occupations, Electronics Test Technician, Computer Technician, Graphics, Drafting Technology, Tool and Die, Respiratory Therapist, Auto Mechanics, and Auto Body. Literally, the whole concept of the program had changed perceptibly to become an even greater force in the economic development picture throughout the industrial community in the Pioneer Valley.

With CETA's major initiatives changing during 1977-1978 from public service employment to skills training programs, and due to inadequate and unsafe conditions in the Main Street quarters, it became obvious that the Skills Center needed much more space than was presently available in both its Springfield and Holyoke training sites. Again, the search was under way to locate buildings consistent with the growing needs of employers in the area. During the first part of 1979 the Skills Center in Holyoke was transferred to the former Holyoke Community College site on Sargeant Street. Not only did the Skills Center move into a much more modern building, but perhaps even more importantly, expanded its space availability in excess of 20,000 square feet. In Springfield an ideal location was found at 140 Wilbraham Avenue. The former Diamond National Company provides approximately 105,000 square feet of space, which more than doubles the square footage of the buildings at 322 and 340 Main Street.

Essentially, effective the month of October, 1979, the Hampden District Regional Skills Center will be housed in Springfield and Holyoke in combined space of more than 150,000 square feet. This capability will enable the Skills Center to continue to work closely with the Hampden County Manpower Consortium and to expand beyond that point as a non-profit-making institution to evolve even closer liaison with business and industry throughout the Hampden County region.

With the advent of the Private Industry Council, there appears to be every opportunity that within the next year the Skills Centers in Springfield and Holyoke will train and graduate in excess of 2,000 participants. It is anticipated there will be significant expansion evolving especially in the occupational clusters of Electronics and Machine. There is every expectation during the next 12-18 months that more than 1,200 graduates within these two clusters will be available to industries in Western Massachusetts. The Hampden County Manpower Consortium, the Private Industry Council, the Hampden District Regional Skills Center, the State Department of Manpower Development, the Office of Commerce and Development and the elected leadership in each of the County's twenty-three cities and towns expect to work coordinately and cooperatively with the private sector to insure that major economic development efforts in Hampden County become a reality. Certainly, the expansion of skills training programs to the level described in this brochure and, as you can observe from your tour of the Springfield facility, proves unequivocally that Hampden County elected officials, manpower representatives and local employers are working to insure the future economic growth and success of the community.