Developing Austin’s Workforce with the Help of a Good Friend

By Bill Imhoff

Alan Miller

If you‘ve ever been in the job market in Austin, or been in the market for hiring a great employee, there’s one person you really should say a thank you to even if you’ve never met. That’s Alan Miller, who announced last week that he’s soon to retire from his job as executive director of Workforce Solutions-Capital Area Workforce Board. As a long-time member of the Workforce Solutions board myself, and two-term chairman, I had the great privilege to work alongside Alan for many years. His career-long commitment to workforce development in Central Texas is nothing short of impressive.

Intertech Flooring long ago recognized how difficult it could be to find, develop and retain talented workers – that’s what brought us to create our own apprenticeship many years ago, and to become an active part of the Workforce Solutions initiatives myself. I can’t think of many better business investments than that of job-training programs that help put people to work in well-paying jobs, and fill voids on payrolls that boost the business economy, the community and the individual. Alan understood that too. He has worked tirelessly and creatively to evaluate job-training programs and use that insight to make them more effective, and put more people to work.

Alan says his work is not quite finished yet, and that’s a good thing for Austin. He has an ambitious goal to put Austin on the path to dramatically increase the number of regional job-training participants that end up in jobs related to that training. Knowing Alan, I have no doubt he will be successful.

I recently re-read Workforce Solutions’ mission – to lead the region’s workforce system in the development of a world-class workforce. Alan Miller has been a big part of making that happen. We’ll miss you, Alan!