WorkReady™: Building a Skills Foundation for Maine
By Jim Baumer
Merely having an up-to-date resume and being able to craft a cover letter are no longer enough to conduct a successful job search. Workers that have been in the same industry for decades and suddenly find themselves out of work are mystified by the entire protocol of how to get a job, and how it’s changed.
In light of that shift in the job market and the subsequent changes taking place in job-search procedures, are there training programs for Mainers that address these various needs? Furthermore, how important are basic skills for Maine’s workforce, and how does this impact Maine’s overall workforce, and affect the state’s economic well-being?
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My son is walking across America. When I mention this to business colleagues and others I have conversations with, they often ask me, “is he trying to raise money for something?” The answer is “no.” He’s doing it because he decided that is how he’d spend his summer.
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[This is an essay excerpt from an upcoming book of essays, Moxie Matters: Life’s Beginnings in a Small Maine Town, which is slated for release in late 2010.-jb]
I’ve been many things in my life—baseball prospect, writer, husband, father—this last one is the moniker, in hindsight that might be the most important for me, primarily because this is how I got connected with my son, Mark.
Parenting is the hardest activity many will ever do in life. The irony in this is that there are really no manuals to follow. Oh, there are a wealth of books, written by America’s expert class that tell you all the “right” things to do, or how to skirt the laws of man and incorporate corporal punishment into the mix, or utilize manipulation and subterfuge. I have little good to say about the likes of these.
For most, you figure it out as you go along, often, trying to run counter to the models inflicted upon us by our own parents. Later in life, you look back at our imperfect predecessors and realize that they didn’t do as bad as we had originally thought they had—subsequently, the damage wasn’t as permanent, or the scars as deep as we had originally feared.
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[I wrote this in May, 2009. I began it just prior to the passing of our dog, Bernie. It was finished a few days after he died.--jb]
Growing up, I never had a dog. My mother, preternaturally neat, thought dogs were dirty and uncouth. I did manage to get her to bend her restrictions enough to have a cat, one we thought was a male, who actually turned out to be female and give birth on my mother’s couch. But that’s another story.
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by admin on March 14, 2010
[Found this article the other day; it's an older piece I freelanced for The TimesRecord, in Brunswick, Feb. 2005—jb]
Taking history from past to the present
news@TimesRecord.Com
02/07/2005
Lisbon students use technology to learn about Lisbon’s past
By Jim Baumer, Special to Neighbors LISBON – With options galore available to capture the interest of today’s teens, history – particularly that of the local variety – often falls off the youthful radar screen. With popular culture placing more value on the 15 minutes of fame of the superficial and the sordid, it’s easy to see why the study of the past no longer captivates.
Don’t tell that to Richard Moore and his seventh- and eighth-grade gifted and talented students at Sugg Middle School, however.
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by admin on March 5, 2010
I know firsthand that writing involves labor—obviously not the physically exhausting kind that accompanies the manual variety—but the difficult mental and often similarly taxing kind that must shadow the stringing of words together in attractive, cogent patterns. I think this knowledge of how difficult this can be has kept me away from my craft longer than is usual for me.
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by admin on February 16, 2010
I’m now in my fourth year of working for a small nonprofit, focused on workforce development issues. Until I was hired by the Central/Western Maine Workforce Investment Board, I knew little about the complexity of Maine’s workforce development system, and the strategic intersection it has to have with economic development, for Maine to have any kind of future in the 21st century.
When I began this job in August, 2006, my position had a loosely defined job description, with my primary focus being coordination with the business community. I was tasked to build a bridge from the public, to the private side. Partly, this involves the skills necessary for successful business development, as well as communicating the need for businesses to support training, as well as other initiatives designed to enhance our regional workforce in Central/Western Maine (a five county region, which includes Androscoggin, Kennebec, Oxford, Franklin, and Somerset).
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by admin on February 13, 2010
A consultant at one of our regional CareerCenters shared this great article with me, about unemployment, and whether taking a job, or continuing to sit idle is in your best interest, if unemployed.
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by admin on February 11, 2010
There are multiple benefits to revving up the physical side of things. How about alleviating stress that comes from work, relationships–life in general?
Take this morning. Up at 4:00 a.m. after a restless night of sleep brought on by job-related stress, I was out the door and at the gym by 5:00. Continue Reading
by admin on February 9, 2010
Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, appears on today’s Democracy Now! broadcast to discuss the link between healthcare and diet, the dangers of processed foods, the power of the meat industry lobby, the “nutritional-industrial complex,” the impact industrial agriculture has on global warming, and his sixty-four rules for eating.
“The markets are full of what I call edible food-like substances that you have to avoid,” says Michael Pollan. “So a lot of the rules are to help you, you know, navigate that now very treacherous landscape of the American supermarket.”
by admin on February 8, 2010
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