igns in northern Indiana's economic landscape point to key roles in future growth for nano- technology and biotechnology, researchers from the Northern Indiana Workforce Board (NIWB) said in a report on the first stage of a three-phase Strategic Skills Initiative (SSI).

Several factors — including outsourcing, a loss of manufacturing jobs overseas, an engineering "brain drain," and global economic trends — have con- verged in the United States to force the American economy into increasingly fragile and volatile shape, noted NIWB researchers Dan Hendricks, vice president of strategic research and development, and Chuck Pressler, Ph.D., director of research. Thus, the five counties of northern Indiana dubbed Economic Growth Region-2 (EGR-2) need "a per- spective that maintains the vitality of the current economy and simultaneously proposes a vision of emerging economic activity and the ways in which jobs, education, and people can be translated into successful participants" in the future of EGR-2's present industries and companies, they wrote in "Strategic Skills Initiative Phase One Report."

THREE  MAJOR  DRIVERS OF  DEVELOPMENT: 
GLOBALIZATION, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
To develop such a vision for northern Indiana's economy in the 21st Century, researchers must account for three major drivers of emerging industrial development:  globalization, technology, and innovation.  Moreover, a vision sufficiently precise that it can be translated into concrete actions should emphasize participation in at least one of the three major, emerging industrial subsectors driving gains in advanced manufacturing:  geospatial devices and knowledge, nanotechnology, and biotechnology.

With this framework in mind, Hendricks and Pressler developed a list of key northern Indiana manufacturing subsectors whose changing circumstances will be vital to the region's econ- omy. These manufacturing subsectors are:

transportation equipment;

medical equipment;

fabricated metal products;

plastics & rubber products; and

machinery manufacturing.

RESEARCHERS  TAG  FOCUS  AREAS IN  HEALTH  CARE 
BASED  ON  EMPLOYMENT,  GROWTH, WAGES, REGION
Based on several factors — including employment, growth, wages, and importance to the regional economy — the researchers identified several areas of health care on which to focus:

ambulatory health care services; and

hospitals.

Within the key manufacturing sectors of transportation equipment through machinery man- ufacturing, the researchers identified several occupations that likely will be vital to those sectors.  These occupations were selected based on their strong employment demand, critical need in the five identified manufacturing sectors, good earnings and benefits, certifiable technical skills, and appropriateness for targeting by the workforce system.  The selected "first-tier" manufacturing occupations include:

welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers;

first-line supervisors of production and operating workers;

painters of transportation equipment; and

computer-controlled (CNC) machine tool operators in the metals and plastics industries.

The first-tier occupations will be the focus of the Strategic Skills Initiative because there are shortages of qualified people to fill these positions in northern Indiana. The second-tier manufacturing occupations, listed below, have been included by Hendricks and Pressler to acknowledge shortages in these jobs as well, and to confirm that these occupations have not been forgotten as regional workforce officials work through resolving the first-tier issues.  The third-tier occupations, likewise described below, "consist of emerging occupations, only recently created, that may become the focus of workforce activities in the future," they said.  For manufacturing, the second-tier occupations include:

truck drivers of heavy trucks and tractor-trailers;

industrial engineering technicians; and

polishers within manufacturing production settings.

 The third-tier manufacturing jobs include:

cytogenetic technologists;

orthotists;

orthopedic cast technologists; and

biostatisticians.

In the northern Indiana health care industry, the researchers identified the
following occupations as first tier:

medical assistants;

registered nurse;

respiratory therapists; and

medical record and health information technicians, including coders.

The health care second-tier occupations include:

radiologic technologists; and

surgical technologists.

Finally, the health care third-tier jobs feature:

biomedical engineer for surgical instruments;

bioinformatics specialists; and

AIDS therapy modelers.

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