Eli Lilly and Company’s $3.5 billion investment is a leading example of how Lehigh Valley’s talent strategies are positioning the region to compete for transformational projects that grow and diversify the economy. 
Lilly scouted more than 300 communities across the country before deciding on the Lehigh Valley. Hundreds of factors were considered – with talent among those at the top.
“Talent is job one,” Jay Biggins of Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co., the national site selector hired by Lilly, said at Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation’s Annual Meeting in March.
Lilly Chair & CEO David Ricks emphasized that point in January when announcing the company’s plans. He said the ability of the Lehigh Valley to provide the talent to fill 850 jobs, and 2,000 construction jobs, was a driving factor.
“We need a variety of types of workers. Sometimes, that’s ready on the ground, but rarely,” Ricks said. “So, it’s about partnership with local institutions, upskilling, from trades to build the site but also all the way through to technicians who will operate the site, engineers and scientists who will lead the site.”
Here’s how the nationally recognized talent strategies developed by Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC) and our partners met Lilly’s talent needs – and are constantly evolving to be ready for future opportunities.
Convening & Collaborating
LVEDC’s Education and Talent Supply Council brings together more than 100 employers, educators, and community organizations. About 200 leaders from those participants collectively create regional strategies to help the Lehigh Valley attract, develop, and retain its workforce.
Establishing those deep relationships and having the right people in the room creates opportunities to collaborate on strategies to address specific needs fast - such as how to help Lilly build its Lehigh Valley workforce.
Discussions with Lehigh Carbon Community College, a member of the Education and Talent Supply Council, resulted in a revision of the college’s initial renovation plans to those that align with Lilly, specifically developing a training program for pharmaceutical and biotech workers.
The new laboratory will feature state-of-the-art equipment designed to mirror the advanced manufacturing environments found in Lilly’s facilities. LCCC will renovate an existing building to create dedicated training pipelines for high-demand roles, including lab testers, quality assurance technicians, manufacturing engineers, and production specialists.
“Our new teaching laboratories will provide the hands-on environment necessary to train the next generation in producing safe, effective, and accessible medications,” said Andrew King, LCCC Interim Dean of Science, Mathematics, and Health Care Sciences.
The state will provide $5 million in funding to support the program.
Data
LVEDC’s talent strategies are data driven and customized for the user.
Through relationships with colleges and universities, LVEDC obtains data about the number of students who are graduating by field of study. Supplemented with other external data sources, LVEDC can tell companies considering the Lehigh Valley how many workers have the skills needed to fuel their operations.
For Lilly, LVEDC research revealed that about 215,000 people within an hour's drive of the company’s site currently work in occupations that Lilly projects it will be hiring for.
A Mature Program
LVEDC and its partners prioritized talent initiatives more than a decade ago, long before they became a mainstream component of economic development. In 2017, LVEDC hired Karianne Gelinas, now Vice President of Talent Strategies, to lead the efforts, which are supported by state grant funding secured by a bipartisan group of state legislators.
That decade of experience has resulted in a robust program, with many partners, that is having a significant impact and is able to pivot quickly.
Looking Ahead to the Next Big Win
To prepare for future opportunities, big and small, and to help existing companies grow, LVEDC and our partners continuously collect and analyze new data, update resources, and create new strategies to meet the evolving talent needs of employers.
That includes producing a Talent Study every three years, to identify skills gaps and needs based on employer surveys. That information is shared with educational institutions for consideration in developing new programs and curriculum to align with those needs. A new Talent Study is now being finalized, for release later this year.
The Hot Careers Dashboard and Guide are updated annually with input from employers to provide job seekers, ranging from students to those seeking a career change, with information about the most in-demand careers in the region, and the educational and training pathways to get there.
For the past seven years, LVEDC, in partnership with the Lehigh Valley’s colleges and universities, has held the Lehigh Valley Internship Summit to share best practices for creating internship programs that can help employers build a pipeline of talent.
A companion directory, the Internship Resource Guide, is developed by LVEDC and updated annually. It includes information about internship programs, processes for how to create and evaluate a program, and a directory of the region’s colleges, universities, and career and technical schools.
LVEDC and the Education and Talent Supply Council support apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship program that advance skilled training opportunities to meet the needs of employers.
They include the Industrial Training and Education Consortium of the Lehigh Valley (iTEC) and a pre-apprenticeship program under development at Bethlehem Area School District, among others.
“Building a comprehensive, cohesive approach to talent across a range of stakeholders, from students and families to employers and educators, stems from everyone working with the same data, shared priorities, and common goals. The Lehigh Valley’s long-standing, data-driven, collaborative talent approach is key to the Lehigh Valley’s economic success,” Gelinas said.
(Eli Lilly and Company photo courtesy of company)