{"id":27959,"date":"2019-10-11T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T17:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=27959"},"modified":"2019-10-11T10:49:49","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T15:49:49","slug":"austin-peay-state-universitys-industry-summit-provides-path-for-regions-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2019\/10\/11\/austin-peay-state-universitys-industry-summit-provides-path-for-regions-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay State University\u2019s Industry Summit provides path for region\u2019s future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Every year, around 40,000 people leave places like Chicago, Atlanta and Miami for a new life in Nashville, but after they reach Tennessee\u2019s state capitol, they often head another 40 miles north.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/a>

Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty delivers the keynote address. (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe largest out-migration out of Davidson county is to Clarksville,\u201d Ralph Schulz, president and CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, said. \u201cWhy is that the case? It\u2019s the case because the culture and the economics of this area are attractive to people. They\u2019re coming to the region and then they\u2019re coming to Clarksville after they get here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schulz zeroed in on Clarksville\u2019s appeal during the Austin Peay State University (APSU) Second Annual Alignment of Community and Education Industry Summit, which took place October 3rd, in the campus\u2019 Morgan University Center Ballroom. This year\u2019s event brought together more than 300 local and regional leaders for a focused discussion on Clarksville\u2019s promising future, with the city recently being named the best place to live in the country by Money magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you leverage that?\u201d Schulz asked. \u201cInvesting in education and investing in transportation, infrastructure in particular. Jobs will follow that. When you\u2019re a friendly, open, positive, vital community with lots of cultural opportunity and lots of diversity, you\u2019re going to see that workforce growth. And when you see that workforce growth, you\u2019re going to see that job creation, that job growth. Those job creators look at the education system and the mobility in the transportation system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Problem Solvers<\/h3>\n

In addition to being named \u201cThe Best Place to Live in the U.S.,\u201d the Clarksville-Montgomery County area has plenty to offer current and potential employers. In July, Montgomery County was named the youngest county in Tennessee, and 6,000 soldiers leave Fort Campbell every year looking for new careers. During Thursday\u2019s summit business, community, education, industry and military leaders discussed some of the remaining issues \u2013 such as workforce preparedness \u2013 that may keep Clarksville from reaching its full potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people in this room are problem solvers,\u201d APSU President Alisa White said. \u201cAnd one way you solve problems is to put together teams, build relationships with people who can help you solve problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

White referred to the people in attendance as a giant focus group, and Montgomery County Mayor Jim Durrett encouraged them to keep working together.<\/p>\n

[320left]\u201cWhat happens in this community can\u2019t happen without a collaborative effort from so, so many different people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that opportunity abounds for everybody,\u201d Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts said. \u201cWe want to make sure the lines of communication are clear and the ideas flow back and forth, because that\u2019s the only way to build upon our success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Bill Hagerty, the summit\u2019s keynote speaker, credited this flow of ideas as one of the reasons why Tennessee is now a destination for national and international investors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one of the reasons Tennessee has been so effective is that leaders at the state level, at the city level, at the county level have been able to come together with the local business community and really have an open environment, a very positive business environment that has made Tennessee extremely attractive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

New workforce skills<\/h3>\n
\"Dr.<\/a>

Dr. Andrew Luna presents the results of the Industry Climate Survey. (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

Earlier this year, Austin Peay State University\u2019s Division of External Affairs commissioned a ground-breaking Industry Climate survey to provide an overall economic picture of the Clarksville-Montgomery County area. During the summit, Dr. Andrew Luna, APSU executive director for Decision Support and Institutional Research, provided the results from the survey he developed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur largest gaps are in improving telecommunication, improving workforce skills and improving public infrastructure,\u201d Luna said.<\/p>\n

In regard to \u201cworkforce skills,\u201d the survey found that employers are looking for applicants with stronger soft skills, such as communication, teamwork and creative thinking. Those findings line up with a recent study by the Brookings Institute regarding Middle Tennessee\u2019s predicted job growth. The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce worked with Brookings to develop the study, which looked at the area\u2019s workforce in relation to artificial intelligence and automation.<\/p>\n

[320right]\u201cOver the next 15 years, by 2035, we expect the jobs available to continue to grow,\u201d Schulz said. \u201cWe don\u2019t expect to see automation or artificial intelligence shrink the number of jobs. But we do expect to see a significant change in those jobs.\u201d He later added, \u201cThe things we call soft skills today will evolve into the hard skills of tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Higher education institutions, such as Austin Peay, will be vital, he said, in providing those important workforce skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will have to continue to learn through education,\u201d Schulz said. \u201cThe jobs we are evolving into are what we call interface jobs \u2013 jobs between technology and human use. And that\u2019s going to require broader education, a broader skill set.\u201d<\/p>\n

For information on APSU\u2019s industry summit, visit www.apsu.edu\/summit<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – Every year, around 40,000 people leave places like Chicago, Atlanta and Miami for a new life in Nashville, but after they reach Tennessee\u2019s state capitol, they often head another 40 miles north.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[33534,23,34057,5594,11642,262,10690,512,1759,825,12399,7758,150,6327,1373,3787,33053,24112,160,10067,34190,8709,1758,2287],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-7gX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27960,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27959\/revisions\/27960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}