DARKE COUNTY - According to Ohio Senator Bill Beagle (R-Tipp City), Darke County’s workforce development initiative is headed in the right direction.

“What we’re looking at doing [at the state level] is, by surveying businesses, we hope to get a short-term and a long-term benefit in terms of making sure that our career tech centers, our high schools, our two-year colleges, and ultimately our four-year colleges have classes designed to train the people who are needed today,” stated Beagle. “And then the trick is to find out what employers need three years from now, five years from now. The career tech center here in Greenville is doing the same thing.”

It’s a new way of thinking, Beagle said, going to employers to find out what they need in terms of a skill set for their employees. According to Marc Saluk, director of Darke County Economic Development, that’s also what Darke County is doing, by talking with employers, and including educators in the conversations.

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