‘Millennium
work force’ could
plug brain drain
Educator says HCC and other
isle schools are creating a pool
of workers to attract high-
tech companiesKaimuki preps students for Net
By Susan Kreifels
Star-BulletinRamsey Pedersen has watched the brain drain over the years, knowing that mainland companies were desperate for a "wired work force." Provide us a thousand skilled young people every year, he heard the information-technology industry say, and we'll consider moving to Hawaii.
Now, Honolulu Community College, with Pedersen as acting provost, has started to plug the drain.
When industry giant Cisco Systems Inc. looked for regional training academies to teach its IT program -- information technology -- Pedersen bucked the bureaucracy and signed his name on the spot last March. Cisco provided free staff training and $15,000 worth of equipment to set up shop. Within six months, HCC was in business.
To date: 150 students enrolled in 12 high schools, HCC and Brigham Young University, with that number expected to double next year. After four semesters, students who pass Cisco's certification exam can be hired in entry-level positions.
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Pedersen knows he may just be adding to the state's brain drain. Before IT-savvy students at HCC even get degrees, "they're sucked up by the industry." And in California, they make $20,000 more for the same job and have a lower cost of living.
But staff at HCC -- the University of Hawaii's primary telecommunications training center -- believe most of their students would stay if there were jobs. And industries will only come if a "critical mass" of high-performance workers is here -- what Pedersen calls the "millennium work force."
"The chicken-and-egg analogy is right on the money," said Phil Bossert, president and CEO of Strategic Information Solutions, a Honolulu business in systems integrations.
Bossert sent two workers to the mainland for $5,000 worth of Cisco training, and he lost an engineer to Minnesota. Hawaii has lost companies because the state couldn't guarantee enough workers, he said. "We have to find enough people (here)."
The state will also need to "buy an industry" -- like "Baywatch" -- hesaid. "Call Motorola and pay them to move a facility here, then build from that core. You need a critical mass of business to attract people to stay.
"Hawaii must start investing capital in enterprise, high-tech and biotech instead of building up the price of land and buildings."
Bossert said the state is now surveying local job needs in information technology. He is a member of the governor's Hawaii Millennium Work Force Development Initiative, which will present a report today.
After people stop spending money on preparing computers for Y2K, Bossert predicts "an explosive growth" in Web site development and intranet work -- creating a mini-Internet within a business. That will increase the need for people trained in programs like Cisco's.
Honolulu Community College, which Bossert said created the world's first education Web site and is a "real force of change," also offers Computer Electronics and Network Technology, or CENT. Enrollment has jumped from 50 to 299 majors, with a long waiting list.
It and the Cisco program represent a "new paradigm" in the job market, Pedersen said. Companies like Cisco and Microsoft don't care about degrees -- they want people who pass their own certifications.
The numbers paint the urgency of programs like those HCC offers. Estimated needs for IT workers in the nation run from 170,000 to 350,000, Pedersen said, with the industry asking for looser labor and immigration laws so it can import skilled people.
Meanwhile, Hawaii's unemployment rate in February was 5.8 percent compared with 4.2 percent on the mainland last month. Tourism is becoming a less reliable source of income for Hawaii. And census figures back up the notion of a state brain drain -- in a 1997 and 1998 period, almost 17,000 more people moved from Hawaii to the mainland than moved from the mainland to here. Hawaii's population growth rate is the third-lowest in the nation, despite a high birth rate and foreign immigration.
"We're the most wired state in the nation," Pedersen said about Hawaii's high-tech communications facilities. "Now we've got to create the buzz words -- the high-performance millennium work force."
High schools with Cisco Systems Inc. training programs Schools with Cisco
On Oahu: Kaiser, Kaimuki, Roose-velt, McKinley, Moanalua, Aiea, Pearl City, Waipahu, Mililani (starting next school year).
Kaimuki primes
students for NetTwenty training in information technology
By Susan Kreifels
have installed the high school's
network themselves
Star-BulletinKaimuki High School students have been busy running raceways -- not the speed-and-thrill stuff. The kind that connects the school's computers through a local area network called a LAN.
Ask them the technical details about the job and they race to point out cabling, patch panels, connectors and routers spread around their computer lab. The classroom is wired with enthusiasm.
They could be the Bill Gateses of the next millennium, the kind of innovative young people the state needs desperately in order to catch up and compete.
"We are part of the 'net' generation,' " said Kaimuki senior William Chang.
Twenty students are enrolled in Kaimuki's Cisco Systems Inc. training program. In February the students worked with the Department of Education's Network Support Services Branch to install Kaimuki's LAN. The project saved the school money and gave the students hands-on experience that will be invaluable to their futures.
Johnathon Griffiths and Harold Kogasaka were trained at Honolulu Community College last summer to be Cisco instructors. Eleven other public high schools are teaching the new program this year as well. It's demanding for students, but Griffiths and Kogasaka said enthusiasm is the most important requirement.
Schools must install $15,000 worth of equipment but can apply for federal funds through the School to Work program. All class information comes through the Internet, and learning is hands-on.
After four semesters and passing Cisco certification, students could get entry-level jobs in LAN work and other areas, or use it "as a milestone" in becoming experts in information technology, said sophomore John Truong.
The students are well aware of the tough job market here, and they see the Cisco program as a good thing for Hawaii's troubled economy.
"The more technology we have, it will attract more and bigger technology companies into Hawaii," Chang said. "Job opportunities will be available. It will save money for Hawaii if we can do these things ourselves, not ask for help from others."
Griffiths and Kogasaka said Kaimuki has taken a chance on the program to stay on the leading edge.
And for slowing Hawaii's brain drain, Griffiths believes, "at least it's a start."
