GITA

The Department of Labor's Grant to "Define and Communication Geospatial Industry Workforce Demand"
Awarded to: GITA and the Association of American Geographers

Quick links:
GIWIS
Geospatial—Industry or Profession?

I. INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND
The President's High Growth Job Training Initiative—This Presidential initiative is a strategic effort to prepare workers to take advantage of new job opportunities in high growth, high demand, and economically vital sectors of the American economy. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment & Training Administration (DOL-ETA). Fourteen targeted industries have been selected and geospatial technology has also been recognized as an important emerging industry.

Targeted High Growth Industries: Advanced Manufacturing, Health care, Automotive, Homeland Security, Biotechnology, Hospitality, Construction, Information technology, Energy, Aerospace, Financial services, Retail, Geospatial, and Transportation

Source: http://www.doleta.gov/BRG/JobTrainInitiative/

DOL-ETA has sponsored substantial initiatives, including six grants totaling nearly $6.4 million, in an effort to define the nature, industry, growth, and workforce requirements of the geospatial industry. Jennifer McNelly, Director of DOL-ETA’s Business Relations Group, has provided some insight regarding selection of geospatial as a high growth industry. Speaking at this project’s October roundtable, she said that the origins were in the nation’s reaction to 9/11 and the need to develop national disaster response capabilities, with the accompanying philosophy that community planning should be based on geospatial skills. Overall Project Objectives This DOL-ETA-funded one-year project is titled “Defining and Communicating Geospatial Industry Workforce Need.”

The objectives are: 1. To define the diverse geospatial industry components, characteristics, and skills required to fill geospatial occupations, so that schools and One-stops can understand them and provide the necessary training; 2. To develop an effective and compelling public outreach program and informational materials about those industry components for distribution through existing DOL-supported education and information channels, to address the lack of public awareness of geospatial technologies and their applications, and to make a better connection between the geospatial industry and diverse populations of potential workers; 3. To pilot and demonstrate experimentally a new and innovative tool for providing current location-based industry demand information correlated with educational and workforce opportunities; 4. To pilot and demonstrate a specific application of these new outreach materials and geospatial intelligence information tools and methodology in a particular geographic area to better align educational, employment, and economic development programs with employers’ labor needs.

GIWIS, or the Geospatial Industry Workforce Information System, is a project funded by the above grant, and ties back directly to the grant's fourth objective. GIWIS is the nation’s first and only online geospatial workforce information network that enables educators, industry and workforce experts to communicate the opportunities, skills required and programs that will help motivate workers to enter the geospatial industry in Denver. In addition, it provides prospective industry workers with the job-development resources, opportunities and contacts they need to explore and enter the exciting and fast-growing industry of geospatial technology.

Geospatial—Industry or Profession?
During the course of this grant, there were some interesting turn of events regarding geospatial receiving an "industry" definition from the Department of Labor. The links below provide some insight into this controversial discussion.