A Planning Initiative for a Gulf Region Technology Education Project for Disaster Preparedness and Recovery

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The project is a cooperative planning initiative involving Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Jones County Junior College, Pearl River Community College, and Mississippi State University and their industrial partners to develop a model for an educational system to produce a multi-skill technological workforce for disaster protection and response (DPR). The planning process is engaging business, industry, emergency management and educational institutions in activities to develop an understanding of the needed skill level in emerging and converging technologies applicable to DPR; to develop and realign curriculum; and to validate the essential technology skills, knowledge, and competencies required in DPR. These efforts are converging on a plan to produce a technology workforce development system based on a skills assessment and gap analysis that relates to current workforce needs in disaster preparedness and recovery. Workshop forums, consultation with industry, and collaboration among employers and education providers is enabling the evaluation of the technology programs in relation to skills sets required for DPR related jobs. Specific technologies being examined are integrated systems, interoperability networks and systems, security, wireless, converged network systems with integrated mobile and fixed access, Internet protocol, enabled multi services networks to converge data transport, voice and video communication, data storage, and other services that use multi protocol label switching technology. An external evaluator is assessing the planning project using a mixed method evaluation process in relation to meeting the stated expected outcomes. The broader impacts of the Initiative extend beyond the community college educational partners to K-12 education, universities, and the workplace. With the rebuilding of a post-Katrina economy, designing and developing a plan to reposition the workplace to embrace emerging and converging technologies will have regional and national implications for workforce development.