Firelands Forward looks forward to investment opportunities

SANDUSKY — Firelands Forward hosted its investor breakfast on Feb. 9 at the Sandusky Yacht Club. Firelands Forward is a workforce development collaborative serving Erie, Huron and Ottawa counties. Our main mission is to connect a skilled labor force to sustainable, long-lasting employment. Our initiative is hosted by the Erie County Economic Development Corp., but we are partners with the Norwalk Economic Development Corp. as well as the Ottawa County Improvement Corp. At this breakfast, we had representatives from the following organizations: the Huron County commissioners, the Erie County commissioners, the Ottawa County commissioners, the Ottawa County Improvement Corp., the Dorn Foundation, Tusing Builders, the Huron County Development Corp, the Huron County Chamber of Commerce, the Erie County Economic Development Corp., Bowling Green State University Firelands, the Erie County Community Foundation, Firelands Health and Cedar Fair. David White presented on our efforts of being incumbent workers, providing high school connections, offering a collective impact and building community involvement. Makenna Laser talked about the communication and outreach plan for 2022, which included the future use of the blog on our website and webinars for businesses and community organizations to attend. We have four main goals for the year of 2022: • Formalize regional career paths • Systemize skill-building flow • Build data collection framework • Strengthen collaboration Here are some other projects in motion: • We are going to start a Regional Industry Opportunity series to present to local high schools on the various career pathways available close to home. • The Employer Resource Network is on track to launch on March 1. Clearwater COG, Northern Manufacturing and Dave's Food Mart have signed up as the first to participate. • A Fireside Chat webinar series will be coming soon. • A Regionomics blog series has started on our website: Regionomics: Automation — Firelands Forward If anyone has any questions about Firelands Forward or if a business would like to speak with us, they can call us at 419-627-7790 or email Laser at makenna@firelandsforward. com.