March 16 was the launch date of the Work Force Ready System and the first eight Skill Connect Assessments. They are now available for sale. And, what’s the reaction been from the field? Positive. We have people signing up to be proctors. We’ve already sold assessments to schools, and we have many more schools and states calling and sending inquiries and expressing interest. To see the purchase site, go to www.workforcereadysystem.org/. 

We’re not keeping our light under a bushel either. In support of Work Force Ready System marketing, our communications office has sent out news releases to the education press, education reporters and to the trade press for all of the areas covered by this initial release. Our PR agency is sending follow-ups to the major publications.

In all, 1,300 e-mailed releases have been sent, and we know we’ve already received coverage, including Industry Week. To see it, go to this link. The main release and the cosmetology news release were also posted on PRWeb, and that means we’ve been covered on Google News, Yahoo News, MSN and the Associated Press among 42 other search engines. We know our news has been read in Canada, China, India, Germany, Spain, France and Italy, among many other nations. There have been over 500 complete readings of the general release alone. To see the release online, please click on this link. 

The National Automotive Student Skills Standards Assessments from Automotive Service Excellence (ASE), Automotive Youth Education Systems (AYES), National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) and SkillsUSA for Automotive Service Technology and Collision Repair and Refinish were also announced on March 16. They have a test window from April 15 – June 12. For information, go to www.na3sa.com/.

The week of national staff planning has gone by but the excitement of the annual “Week of Excitement” lingers and so does the work to be accomplished. We worked right through January 12-16 with full staff meetings on Tuesday the 13th and during the morning the following day. 

We did a gap analysis on the FY09 plan and found there are several things – particularly in light of the current economy – for which we need to develop some contingency plans so we can maintain high quality service to our members. On the upside, we’re gearing up for the release of the first set of Skill Connect Assessments in just a few weeks, and we’re receiving a lot of interest from the states.

Looking ahead to 2010 and 2011, staff picked up the recommendations of the board based on research from the field and our own SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and has started development of objectives and business plans to move SkillsUSA ahead. Many of our objectives look toward building opportunities for our chapters to expand: community service; “green” and/or sustainability initiatives; building our national data bases and office technology; and, diversity/inclusion initiatives. We should have a strong pro-active plan for the board in March.