STEM Workforce &
Program Support
The TechVision21 team are experts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) policy. They helped BEST deliver outstanding STEM reports for the U.S. Army and Office of Naval Research on time and within budget.
TechVision21 helps large science, engineering, and technical organizations assess their science, technology, and engineering workforce needs and their workforce development initiatives, and then optimize their strategies and programs to recruit, retain, and develop a world class STEM workforce.
TechVision21 uses a proprietary methodology to characterize the current STEM workforce and future needs, examine labor market trends and STEM degree production that could affect the supply of STEM professionals, and identify technological trends that could shape future STEM skills demand.
This assessment serves as a knowledge base from which companies and Federal departments can determine whether their portfolio of STEM programs is adequate to meet their projected needs.
This assessment serves as a knowledge base from which companies can determine whether their portfolio of STEM programs are adequate to meet their projected needs.
TechVision21’s Methodology Includes:
- Analysis of current and future science, engineering, and technical workforce needs.
- An assessment of an organization’s human capital strategies and plans, and determination of whether these strategies and plans meet stated needs.
- Analysis of existing key education, recruitment, retention, and workforce development programs, and the degree to which these programs are used and effective.
- Review of managers’ perceptions of how well these programs overall address current and future recruiting and retention goals.
- Benchmarking existing education, recruitment, retention, and workforce development programs against best-in-class design principles.
- Identifying current pipeline programs that demonstrate the greatest return on investment.
- Analysis of efforts to increase workforce diversity.
- Analysis of effects of workplace culture and environment on the recruitment and retention of science, engineering, and technical personnel.
- Recommendations to optimize the organization’s science, technology, and engineering human capital strategy and portfolio of implementing programs.
TechVision21 has used this methodology to assess the U.S. Department of the Navy’s civilian and uniformed STEM workforce; assess the U.S. Department of the Air Force’s civilian microelectronics workforce; and the science and engineering education, recruitment, retention, and workforce development initiatives of the Office of Naval Research, the Naval Research Laboratory, Navy warfare centers, and the U.S. Army’s network of more than 20 research laboratories and engineering centers.
TechVision21 recommended eliminating programs that did not contribute directly to workforce development and recruitment goals, and consolidating a confusing array of duplicative programs under a few best-in-class program models. TechVision21 identified other areas in which improvement was needed, such as job candidate identification, program management, sharing of information throughout the enterprise, marketing of job openings and training opportunities, and creation of “one-stop-shop” web sites to provide information to external and internal audiences.
TechVision21 also recommended strategies for improvement that were cost-effective, easy to implement, and compatible with each organization’s culture.
Kelly H. Carnes, President and CEO
As Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy she:
- Led the Clinton Administration’s efforts to increase representation of women and minorities in the Nation’s technology work force.
- Created GetTech, an award-winning national public awareness and information campaign to encourage teens to pursue technology careers. GetTech featured celebrity endorsements, radio and television public service announcements, and an interactive web site. GetTech ads were broadcast more than 45,000 times and reached students in 14,000 public middle schools.
- Served on the National Governors Association Commission on Technology and Adult Education.
- Served as a member of the Steering Committee for the Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology (the “Morella Commission”).
- Served as an advisor to BEST: Building Engineering and Science Talent, a public-private partnership which convened practitioners, researchers and policymakers to identify effective practices for developing the technical talent of underrepresented groups in pre-K through higher education and the workplace.
Carol Ann Meares, Vice President for Policy
For the U.S. Department of Commerce, she coauthored three seminal analytical reports on the IT workforce:
- Workforce Globalization in IT Services and Software;
- Education and Training for the Information Technology Workforce, Report to Congress from the Secretary of Commerce; and
- The Digital Work Force: Building Infotech Skills at the Speed of Innovation.
At the Commerce Department, she also:
- Conceptualized, catalyzed, and managed Visions 2020: Transforming Education and Training through Advanced Technologies (U.S. Departments of Commerce and Education, September 2002).
- Authored Visions 2020.2: Student Views on Transforming Education and Training Through Advanced Technologies, U.S. Departments of Commerce and Education, NetDay, 2005.
- Was the architect of the White House National Science and Technology Council’s Working Group on Advanced Technologies for Education and Training, a policy initiative involving 14 Federal departments and agencies.
As Senior Policy Associate at the Federation of American Scientists, she developed the Federation’s October 2005 National Summit on Educational Games and authored the Summit report: Harnessing the Power of Video Games for Learning. For the Council on Competitiveness, she authored WORK: Thriving in a Turbulent, Technological and Transformed Global Economy.