Promoting Work-Based Learning in Grays Harbor

Grays Harbor County is a rural logging and fishing community in Washington. Greater Grays Harbor, Inc. set out to expand work-based learning opportunities in the region by working more closely with workforce training companies and local businesses.

The goal was to connect area companies to the resources that are already available to them and promote work-based learning opportunities to address workforce challenges and create pathways to economic mobility.

Loretta Thomas, the chamber’s director of business development, said there was growing momentum in the region for work-based learning opportunities, particularly apprenticeships. The chamber expanded its relationships with workforce training providers and remains a partner with AJAC in supporting youth apprenticeship cohorts. The chamber is also expanding its online resources to highlight regional workforce development resources, skills training providers and work-based learning opportunities.

The chamber’s initial apprenticeship effort focused on advanced manufacturing, working with a large cannery, Ocean Companies. Thomas’s goal was to leverage an upskill and backfill model to help employers reward longstanding employees with training and promotion opportunities while also finding new workers to backfill the positions created by the advancement of the newly trained employees. Two participants were longstanding employees being upskilled in operations management and logistics and planning; the third was a local high school student completing an apprenticeship in operations management. One of those employees went on to advance into a different role within the company.

“The company that we are working with is one of our largest employers in Grays Harbor,” Thomas said. “I’m trying to get them to be our champions for this type of program.”

Since then, the work had to adapt. New Washington state regulations restricted minors from entering certain industrial worksites even with parental consent, removing placements that had been central to students earning apprenticeship hours in the region’s primary industries.

The chamber also widened the talent pools it reaches. A college culinary program the chamber previously helped stand up with a grant is now running and expanding into entrepreneurship training. A new partnership with the Tacoma Goodwill's senior employment program places workers 55 and older into local businesses.

To continue to grow, Thomas said the chamber needs to engage different industry partners and training providers. By highlighting the chamber’s success with the advanced manufacturing apprenticeship, she hopes to build similar initiatives in other industries.