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Berkshire Workforce Skills Cabinet Meets With Secretary Jay Ash

PITTSFIELD — The Berkshire Workforce Skills Cabinet, co-chaired by MassHire Berkshire Workforce Board, 1Berkshire and Berkshire Community College, met on Dec.18 with Jay Ash, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, who brought with him updates from the Baker Administration.

North Adams Mayor Bernard, State Representative John Barrett III, A.J. Enchill from State Senator Hinds office, and Lisa Udell-Fletcher from State Representative Farley-Bouvier’s office were also part of the conversation. 

In discussion with the cabinet members, Secretary Ash noted that the work being done by the Berkshire cabinet and the other six cabinets from across the Commonwealth is directly impacting the work done at the state level. Resource allocation and sets of best practices developed through this process will be used to help sustain and grow workforce skills training programs and to help strategize the best use of available resources going forward.

The board provided additional insights as to the challenges they face in terms of attracting and retaining mid-level professionals in the region. This allowed them to begin to frame out options for meaningful data collection for both a baseline and ongoing collection of data so as to chart the impact of their collective work. In February 2019, the board will have its aggregated asset map and baseline metrics set to begin tracking the impact of actionable work.