Scott Jansen grew up in a blue-collar home on the northwest side of Milwaukee. His father drove a bus and his mother worked in the Singer Controls factory as a shipping clerk.
In the ’60s and ’70s, he saw the city’s industrial base thrive. Later, he watched as manufacturing shrank, a victim of global competition and outsourcing.
Now Jansen, who spent most of his nearly three-decade career as an executive with AT&T, has signed on with the state to help boost private-sector job creation. Since May, he’s headed the new Office of Skills Development, which will distribute $15 million in employer-focused worker training grants. Companies will be required to pay some of the costs for the programs, he said.
The funding is part of $20 million included in Act 9, the Wisconsin Fast Forward legislation passed earlier this year with bipartisan support. The remainder of the funding will be used to create a labor market information system and bankroll what he called a “lean” staff of four. To date, Dennis Schuh has been hired as a program manager.
Jansen said he hopes the OSD will be able to begin distributing grants as early as October, once the administrative rules and procedures are written and approved.
He said the grants will be awarded to companies or business groups that can demonstrate a specific labor shortage that isn’t being met by other training or education programs and is backed by labor market information.
