2018 Board of Directors
Steve Paterson President & CEO League City Regional Chamber
Education Is Everything! As we all know the market place is changing dynamically, in fact, that may be an
understatement. I sat through a webinar last week, which after two hours changed my thinking dramatically. Although it did confirm, that my intuition was steering me in the right direction as we endeavor to move the Chamber of Commerce membership needs forward.
The webinar was about changes coming in transportation and in automation, or as it is beginning to be referred to as the“ Internet of all things.” Also, in that same week I heard a presentation from a person who does economic forecasting for the Federal Reserve in Dallas. He spoke to the employment rate in Houston and the effect of the oil and gas industry turn down in 2016 and 2017, where many layoffs and jobs eliminations took place. However, conversely because of the diversification of the economy in the Houston area over the past twenty years, the market place was able to quickly back fill many of those jobs with placements in the service industry, for a net of almost zero job loss. However, the downside of this event will be felt for a long time and will be continually affect our markets. The reason is the wage disparity of the new jobs versus the old jobs.
The main reason was this event was twofold. The first reason was the higher paying jobs were skills-based jobs that were the ones lost, which many are being replaced by technology. Secondly, the new service-based jobs were ones, which were manual labor related or required less skills to accomplish, hence the pay is less. In a side bar conversation with the economist, I asked him a question,” How many jobs are out there that cannot be filled, because people who have those skillsets are not present?”. His answer was, many. Funny answer for an economist, so I pressed harder. He stated,” that they have not looked at that market or segmented those needs in their analysis”.
When I heard this, to me would be an exceptional opportunity if someone were to study our market to determine where these skills gaps are and identify a means to close that gap. This would be an excellent way to identify and predict where education and skillset training could be developed to provide high paying careers.
Going back to my initial statement of the market place is changing dynamically, however so are the skills needed for this new economy. In the past year here in our region, we have had leadership change at two of our upper divisional educational institutions. Dr. Warren Nichols, now President of College of the Mainland and Dr. Ira Blake, President of the University of Houston Clear Lake are very tuned into this skills gap that exists and are moving their institutions forward to meet the need s of economic development and the workforce needed to meet those needs being developed locally. We are also seeing this movement happen at Galveston College, Texas A and M Galveston, San Jacinto Community College and UTMB. This is very encouraging.
League City and the surrounding region is blessed with a wonderful future as it evolves. We sit in the middle of this innovation corridor, which will require skilled and educated professionals as the region develops. I believe, to be successful, a study to find out what those needs are would be a wonderful investment and a benefit to our educational institutions to help them fill those gaps, before they become apparent. By moving in this direction, we may become the leader in job creation and quality communities we know that can happen. After all, as we all know, education is everything.
2018 Board of Directors
Chairwoman, Rebecca Lilley
Memorial Hermann
Treasurer, Bix Rathburn
RPC Consulting
Secretary, Gloria Greene
EliteCare 24 Hour ER
Past Chairman, Ray Soto
Soto Financial & Insurance
2019 Incoming Chairman, Bill Provenzano
Hometown Bank of League City
Elga Boeker
Houston Methodist St. John Hospital
James Brockway
Brockway Realty / Commercial
Dr. Laura Dupont
CCISD
Matthew Mathias
Clear Lake Regional Medical Center
Kalpesh Patel
Hampton Inn & Suites / Candlewood Suites
Chris Premont
Ron Carter Cadillac Hyundai Genesis
Dan Seal
BAHEP
Debbie Simmons
Anchor Point
Becky Trout-Unbehagen
UTMB Health
Rolando Villareal
Hilltop Securities
Peter Wuenschel
CIS- Bay Area
John Baumgartner
Ex-Officio, City of League City
Amanda Fenwick
Ex-Officio, City of Clear Lake Shores
Lisa Howard
Ex-Officio, HOT Tax Board
Peggy Zahler
Ex-Officio, HOA Alliance of League City