By By JOHN EBY / Niles Daily Star
DOWAGIAC – Michigan Works is working closely with the Dowagiac-based Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians on the upcoming hiring phase for its Four Winds Casino Resort opening this summer near New Buffalo in Berrien County.
Executive Director Todd Gustafson said the Pokagon Band needs to hire 2,700 people within the next four months.
"It's significant," he told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889.
"There are two parts to the casino. One is the construction phase right now, which is predominantly labor unions, so the amount of jobs we've been able to impact in that arena have been few to none.
"The scope of the project we're working on hand in hand with the casino as it ramps up, we've been meeting with the company (the tribe) hired as late as (Wednesday). They need to fill 2,000 fulltime positions.
"Whatever it takes to run a small community – janitors, transportation folks, tellers, card dealers, accountants. We're going to start posting their jobs and doing career fairs. In the next month or so we'll go out with their management and have forums in the community, including Dowagiac, New Buffalo, Benton Harbor and one other site yet to be determined."
"An issue is that there are two parts to long-term hospitality jobs," Gustafson said. "The first part is that dealers and those related to the gaming, they want experienced individuals and will probably draw from existing casinos in the region – if not beyond. We're really not involved in that.
"The other part of looking for experienced individuals is that a huge vacuum is going to be created in the community for a number of people who currently work as bank tellers, accountants or maintenance technicians who are going to have an opportunity to go work for the casino. So there will be positions that need to be back-filled as well," he said. "It's a monumental project. I don't want to go into any further detail."
Gustafson is executive director for the tri-county Michigan Works, which is one of 25 such agencies in the state. There are some 650 workforce development boards throughout the United States. It is 10th-largest in Michigan and serves a population of 340,000. The 25 agencies are set up differently. Most are government or quasi-government entities. His is among a handful of non-profit agencies "because it puts us in a better position to be able to attract non-government funding. It also puts us in a position to take on initiatives that the others aren't. It's one of the unique models in Michigan and we're going to capitalize on that going forward."
Gustafson attributed the non-profit status to a 1998 decision by local elected officials when they forged an interlocal agreement.
"We've been very aggressive in identifying and attracting money we can use to impact our communities and especially Cass County," he said.
Local elected officials appoint private-sector board members.
All three Cass County representatives on the workforce development board happen to be Dowagiac Rotarians: Dr. Fred L. Mathews, chairman of the Southwestern Michigan College Board of Trustees, who introduced Gustafson; Bob Wagel, Board of Commissioners chairman; and Bob Cochrane, Council on Aging executive director.
Michigan Works consists of its main office in Benton Harbor, satellite offices in South Haven and Buchanan and full-service centers in Paw Paw and Dowagiac (North Pointe Center, N. Front Street).
"Todd has completely turned that organization upside down for the better," Mathews said. "I would stick my neck out and say that by any objective criteria I know, I believe the Berrien, Cass and Van Buren Michigan Works to be the best organized, most effective and smoothest running in Michigan. Todd has done a magnificent job for us and has the complete support of his whole board."
Dowagiac Economic Development Director Sandy Gower agreed.
"A lot of companies just go to (MIchigan Works) when they need applicants, so they don't have to take applications on-site. They're not bothered with everyone coming in to apply for jobs. I think the changes are very beneficial."
"We can run their hiring process for them," he said. "Some employers receive 100 to 150 applications for one position. There's no way they have the time to go through that. We can narrow it down to the individuals most likely to succeed."
In the past few years Michigan Works reinvented itself from focusing on job seekers walking through the door to a demand-driven model in which employers became its primary customers.
"That's a significant change," Gustafson said. "Everything we were organized to do was geared towards serving job-seekers. We're still going to serve job-seekers, but better because we've been reaching out to businesses which hire people. Businesses have workforce needs for us to meet. Tell us what you want and we'll find them. If we can't find them, we'll get them trained by reaching out to the community colleges (Southwestern Michigan College in Dowagiac and Niles and Lake Michigan College near Benton Harbor)."
"That's a fundamental change," he said. "Our goal really is to identify high-demand growth industries in our three counties where there is job creation or replacement."
For the past six months Michigan Works has focused on identifying the four growth sectors where 70 percent of jobs demand resides – health care, hospitality, advanced manufacturing and construction, or skilled trades.
Besides the casino, the workforce development agency has worked closely with Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor.
"That doesn't mean we're excluding any other sectors," he said. "We're still reaching out to them. In Cass County alone we work with 108 employers," including National Copper Products, the Pokagon Band and ICG in Dowagiac and K&M Machine-Fabricating in Cassopolis.
Employers are furnished an array of services, from posting job orders listing hiring openings and "getting the word out" to screening applicants, setting up interviews, coordinating testing and paying for training for new hires.
"We educate Cass County job-seekers about the local labor market, then help them assess, develop and market their skills to potential employers," Gustafson said. "One of the ways we've started doing that through our Dowagiac office is tracking people who come through. We have a new system in place since December. We've been tracking 627 individuals who have been in the Dowagiac office since Dec. 1 seeking some sort of services, whether it's resume-writing skills, job search training, labor market information. We've now amassed a pool of candidates. We know what their interests are and what they their skills set is. We can go to our customer on the front end, the employers, we can find them workers from that labor pool. If we can't, then we can broaden our reach."
So aggressive has Michigan Works been at attracting additional money that it just recently landed $2 million over the next three years from the U.S. Department of Labor for the health care industry.
Working with SMC and LMC, Michigan Works will both develop framework and offer scholarships for four career tracks – emergency medical technicians (EMTs), registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and paramedics.
"We have scholarships for up to 104 individuals to pay for the full amount of their schooling," he said. "That's just one example of many initiatives we have under way to make an impact."
'Holistic' prison re-entry
cuts costs and recidivism
Another is the state-driven prisoner re-entry program rolling out in Cass County in October "with the single goal of reducing recidivism," he said. "Berrien County was one of eight in the original pilot. We've seen a significant impact. Cass County is projected to have 49 individuals come back on a yearly basis to Cass County, where they were from originally" before their incarcerations. In Berrien we're working with upwards of 300 ex-offenders."
Gustafson said the prison re-entry program, which will be the topic for a Rotary luncheon in April, is a "holistic" approach encompassing finding a job, bettering skills, insuring transportation to work, health care and housing.
"It costs roughly $35,000 to $38,000 on an annual basis to keep an individual incarcerated," Gustafson said, "whereas we're spending about $3,000. It's a significant savings if it's done right. We're one of the best – if not the best – in job placement. We have an 80- to 84-percent placement rate for ex-offenders. Our recidivism rate is dramatically lower than 48 percent."
Before coming to southwest Michigan two years ago, Gustafson headed an economic development partnership in Iron Mountain for four years. Prior to that he worked for the U.S Chamber of Commerce in Washington and for former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham.
Gustafson earned both his bachelor's degree in international relations and a master's degree in public administration from Northern Michigan University. He served nine years in the U.S. Army Reserve as a military intelligence officer.