Khanna

Eastern Kentucky may be 2,500 miles from Silicon Valley, but this region of Appalachia is working hard to transform its workforce for today’s digital economy. Dubbed “Silicon Holler,” the area is serving as a model for other economically depressed communities to support training for next generation jobs. And a couple of congressmen are reaching across the aisle and the country to help the transformation.

Back in September, Big Sandy Community and Technical College in Paintsville, KY, partnered up with Interapt, one of Kentucky’s hottest new tech companies, to provide a paid training program to 50 people from various backgrounds. At the end of the intensive 32-week program—16 weeks of paid classroom work, followed by a 16-week paid apprenticeship—students are groomed for a career building software and are eligible for a full-time job at Interapt. The key: training with guaranteed jobs.

On Monday, Kentucky politicians, tech leaders, and students gathered at the college to celebrate the success of the program—and Interapt’s announcement of its renewal for a second year.

The event, “Transforming IT Workforce Training in Eastern Kentucky,”—hosted by Congressman Hal Rogers (R-KY), Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Governor Matt Bevin—included a roundtable, led by SOAR (Shaping Our Appalachian Region), that included political leaders, the federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission, representatives from Apple and Amazon, and leaders in education, business, and economic development.

Tuesday morning, Congressman Khanna appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to talk about the program, how it could implemented on a larger scale, and what Washington and Silicon Valley need to do in order to transition people from an industrial to a digital economy.

Congressman Ro Khanna on TechHire Eastern Kentucky (TEKY) program

Congressman Khanna appeared on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ March 14 to talk about the TechHire Eastern Kentucky (TEKY) program, how it could implemented on a large…

Another initiative in Eastern Kentucky aimed at helping those out-of-work is AmeriCorps VISTA. Members have been teaching coal miners the workplace skills needed for the jobs of the future, changing lives in the process.

AmeriCorps VISTA connecting coal miners to new jobs

Learn how AmeriCorps VISTA members support the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program in connecting out-of-work coal miners with new jobs. For fifty years, AmeriCorps VISTA has strengthened the efforts to eliminate poverty in our nation’s rural and urban communities To learn more visit www.NationalService.gov

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.