Community College as Convener
June 8, 2010
In better times, Monroe Community College knew where its bread was buttered.
Rochester, N.Y.'s three major employers -- the Eastman Kodak Company, the Xerox Corporation and Bausch & Lomb, all of which maintain major offices in the city -- filled the college’s coffers, contracting it to train most of their workers.
“This ‘big three’ really drove workforce development and training in the region by sheer volume,” writes Anne M. Kress, MCC’s president, in an e-mail. “One or the other might express a specific training need for literally hundreds of employees, and MCC would develop and provide this training.”
This, she explains, is one of the reasons why MCC has such strong optics and advanced manufacturing programs -- rare offerings for a community college.
But the boom times for the stalwarts of Rochester’s economy did not last forever, and the three giants have all significantly trimmed their payrolls. Kress notes that Kodak, for example, now has fewer than 10,000 employees in the area, down from a peak of nearly 60,000.
Now, instead of being dominated by a few major employers, Rochester has transformed into a hub of small businesses. Kress notes that more than 90 percent of businesses in the area have fewer than 100 employees and that most of these businesses are high-tech in nature, including many with a focus in optics and advanced manufacturing, like the “big three.”
As the region’s economic landscape shifted, MCC adapted, both to keep a stream of corporate contract dollars coming in and to meet the job training needs of local residents.