Business

St. Louis has ideas for finding tech talent

Published

10 months ago

December 13, 2023

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A collection of tech-focused organizations in St. Louis is pushing to transform how companies in the region find their talent amid a significant shortage of workers in the local tech sector.The strategies focus both on filling thousands of open positions and bringing more racial and economic diversity into those roles, which are predominantly held by white men.“There is an acute need to find a way for employers to have their tech talent needs met,” said Sam Fiorello, president and CEO of the Cortex Innovation Community. “Frankly, the traditional way of hiring folks after a four-year degree from a university, it’s just not a big enough pipeline to meet those needs.”Among cybersecurity positions alone, Fiorello estimates the St. Louis region is approaching nearly 10,000 openings. More broadly the region needs to double its tech workforce, adding 85,000 jobs in the sector, said Emily Hemingway, executive director of TechSTL.“That’s a challenging, long-game initiative that we’re going to have to tackle,” she said. “When it comes to growing the economy here in St. Louis, it’s one of the most important pieces.”New programs for trainingIn response, the region has secured funding to broaden the local pipeline of tech talent available to companies.It includes $7 million that Cortex recently secured from the State of Missouri to make free training, education and industry-recognized certification opportunities available to many local residents.Cortex won’t be leading courses but rather working to connect established training and educational resources, like those at Per Scholas, CyberUp and LaunchCode, with employers who need more tech talent, Fiorello said.“(Cortex is) really good at inserting ourselves in an ecosystem and creating something in which the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts,” he said. “We will figure out a way to make the system run more smoothly, more efficiently.”TechSTL also recently secured a $100,000 community enhancement grant from Verizon to develop foundational tech skills for some 10,000 residents and reduce the local digital divide in historically underserved areas of the region, Hemingway said. The funding pays for programming that trains how to utilize tools like email, Google Drive, Microsoft Office and other software that’s necessary for most jobs these days, she explained.“The systems that we often take for granted, but if you’re not super comfortable with it, then you’re not going to lean into opportunities like LaunchCode and CyberUp,” Hemingway said. “That program is more about building tech confidence than tech competence.”But it’s not enough to get more Missourians comfortable using technology or enrolled in accelerated training programs with tech certifications from Google, CompTIA or others; they also have to have local tech jobs they’re filling, Hemingway said.Barriers remain for nontraditional talentThere are still barriers nontraditional candidates face when trying to break into the tech industry, said Charlie Mackey Jr., founding managing director of Per Scholas in St. Louis. The organization provides tuition-free tech training for adults locally and in communities across the country.“We’re trying to help with the barriers that are kind of self-imposed,” Mackey said. “Many employers have a requirement for a four-year degree, but slowly and surely they’re realizing a four-year degree doesn’t mean everyone that comes out has the skills and ability to do the role.”Programs at Per Scholas are full time, spanning about 13 to 15 weeks, and can cover the same amount of curriculum as a two-year degree, he said.Mackey added that the people who go through this kind of accelerated program are often highly motivated and passionate about cultivating a career in tech. To him, it’s vital to bring employers into the classroom to give them the opportunity to observe students and ask them questions about what they’re doing or learning, Mackey said.“It all starts with them seeing the talent in person,” he said. “We can talk about it all day, but seeing is believing.”This strategy of exposure is helpful in reframing the value of nontraditional talent, but there’s still stigma, Mackey said.“We are doing much better at getting rid of the perception of risk for these talented individuals, but we still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “That’s going to come from the employers engaging in these programs.”LaunchCode CEO Julian Nicks argues employers also need to reframe how they think about the graduates from tech training organizations like his, which prioritize educating people from many backgrounds. In the past, hiring these candidates has been thought of as charity, he said.“But this isn’t about charity,” he said. “At the end of the day, we have a critical issue facing technology: Jobs are growing way too quickly, and college pipelines aren’t expanding and creating talent pools fast enough.”Nicks adds that tech bootcamps and other alternative training options aren’t novel anymore and have proven they can work to produce quality tech talent.Mid-level or senior rolesPart of this transition means adjusting the expectations or requirements companies have typically had for roles beyond entry level, said Matthew Modica, vice president and chief information security officer at BJC HealthCare.He points to a recent example in which the company was seeking a highly experienced candidate for a senior level role that manages users and their access to different internal systems. The position remained open for about 120 days, which is a long time, Modica said.“It’s forever,” he said. “At 60 days we were starting to get worried just because we couldn’t find the right skillset, the right person willing to come in at the right money and all that kind of stuff for that position.”Instead, Modica explained he decided to reframe his search to internal candidates who may not have met all of the posting’s requirements but could meet them with additional training or certification. And that’s what the company opted for in the end, he said.“That actually opened up a lower-level engineer position,” Modica said. “That had us looking the same way: Can we take somebody who’s entry level and move them into that if they want to take the opportunity and have the attitude, aptitude, skills that they’re willing to invest and build out?”This is a strategy Modica said has applied to other roles and job profiles, especially examining if those roles absolutely need a college degree or if relevant experience and certification requirements can suffice. This can help expand the potential pool of candidates, he added.“I’m looking for usually a unicorn to fit all those requirements perfectly to fill that position; you’re never going to find that unicorn,” Modica said. “How do I adjust those expectations to be reasonable based on the candidate pool that’s available to eventually get where I need to go?”Fiorello of Cortex wants to see more employers in the region take these kinds of steps and adds that his organization’s standing in the community makes it well positioned to help facilitate them.“That brand gives us unique access to C-Suite folks to say, ‘We need to try something different, we can help you get your needs met in a different way,’” he said. “This is a change in mentality and a change in thinking.”And it’s vital for community partners to be present to help make these changes easier to implement as well, Hemingway said.“Unfortunately in the tech space, a lot of that responsibility has landed on the tech companies themselves,” she said. “The vast majority of trainings can be offered in the community to offload a lot of that cost and investment from companies.”The biggest companies are going to find communities that help carry this burden, Hemingway said. Developing strong programs locally for St. Louis can contribute to its economic vitality, because it will push companies toward the region when they just as easily could go elsewhere, she said.

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Laclede’s Landing is moving from nightlife hub to neighborhood

Published

1 month ago

August 28, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Laclede’s Landing has cycled through many identities throughout the history of St. Louis. Now, some people involved with its redevelopment in recent years hope the landing’s next one will be as a residential neighborhood.The small district tucked directly north of the Gateway Arch National Park has quietly undergone a massive redevelopment with more than $75 million pouring into the rehabilitation of many of the historic buildings at the landing.“We are starting to feel that momentum, especially in the last really 60 days. Things have drastically changed around here,” said Ryan Koppy, broker and owner of Trading Post Properties and the director of commercial property for Advantes Group.Advantes alone shouldered the rehabilitation of six of the historic buildings, which now sport a mix of apartments and retail or office space, he said. Four of those buildings are completed, and of the 119 apartments available, about 90% are filled, Koppy said.“It just shows you what kind of demand we do have for the area,” he said. “We’re separated from downtown a little bit, and for the tenants, their local park where they’re walking their dogs, it’s a national park.”

Sophie Proe

St. Louis Public RadioInterior of the Peper Lofts at Laclede’s Landing on Aug. 16

Another 40 apartments are set to come online next year along with some retail space, Koppy said. He added he’s noticed a wide range of people who are considering and moving into the newly refinished apartments.“It’s very mixed, surprisingly,” Koppy said. “We have a lot of young professionals, maybe on their second job out of [university], we have some empty nesters too.”Part of the newfound momentum comes from a new market, the Cobblestone, and coffee shop, Brew Tulum, opening recently and bringing more foot traffic to the area, said Brandyn Jones, executive director of the Laclede Landing Neighborhood Association. She added that more apartments are set to come online within the next few months.“We have a great riverfront area here and so there are plans in the works to activate those spaces, bring people in,” she said.That could be more daytime events, like a farmers market, music festivals (one of which is happening this weekend) or just bringing in food trucks to Katherine Ward Burg Garden, Jones said. It’s a departure from the identity the district held a few decades ago as a hub for nightlife and entertainment.“That’s part of what connects so many people to Laclede’s Landing,” Jones said. “It’s important to tell the story of where we’re evolving. It won’t be what it was in the same exact way, but it will still be fun, and it can be fun early morning, midday or late night.”It’s a view shared by Koppy.“It’s grown up, it’s a bit mature,” he said. “We’re not going to have 3 a.m. bars here anymore because we have residents here.”Koppy added that Advantes is joined by other developers working to rehabilitate buildings in the district.“We all work in unison,” he said. “If I get a call and [a client is] asking for something and maybe the square foot doesn’t really match up with what I have available, but I know it matches up over there, they’re getting a very warm welcome and introduction.”

Sophie Proe

St. Louis Public RadioRyan Koppy looks out the window of Brew Tulum Specialty Coffee Experience on Aug. 16 at the Cobblestone on Laclede’s Landing in downtown St. Louis.

This push toward making Laclede’s Landing a residential neighborhood also comes alongside broader conversations about the future of downtown St. Louis more generally as it looks to move away from a dependence on office space. While the city as a whole continues to lose population, downtown added about 1,700 people between 2010 and 2020, according to U.S. Census data.“It’s been wonderful timing to have all that going on, that stress that you’re not just in downtown to work has been critical to part of this rejuvenation and energy down here,” Jones said. “Sometimes people forget Laclede’s Landing is part of downtown, really the original downtown.”And success in the small district could spread beyond its small confines and potentially serve as a model for success, Koppy added.“My idea is, if we could get all the great things of St. Louis coming in through here, we can eventually spread that,” he said. “We understand we can’t change the whole world, but we’ll just make the effort to try and change the world around us.”

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St. Louis barbecue festival Q in the Lou canceled

Published

1 month ago

August 27, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The largest barbecue competition and tasting festival in St. Louis, Q in the Lou, has been canceled. The event was planned for Sept. 6-8, but organizers decided to cancel it due to poor ticket sales and insufficient corporate sponsorship.The traveling festival had low attendance in Denver last week, said Sean Hadley, a festival organizer.“We made the tough decision to cancel Q in the Lou,” said Hadley. “We’re seeing a lack of support … it’s just not there.”The traveling event first came to St. Louis in 2015 and drew hundreds of people to downtown St. Louis for barbecue, live music and a “major party.”“It shut down out of the blue … I’ve gone every year,” said Scott Thomas, local chef and food blogger. “It’s brilliant. You could take a tour of some really amazing barbecue restaurants and competition barbecue guys all in one place.”In a late July news conference, city officials touted Q in the Lou as a significant tourism draw and a boost for downtown revitalization.“Bringing a signature national festival back to downtown St. Louis … is making us stronger,” Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Jason Hall said then.Less than a month later, ticket holders from every festival stop learned they’d be refunded. On Monday, organizers privatized the Q in the Lou website and deleted its social media accounts.Conner Kerrigan, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office, said city officials are disappointed the festival won’t be back this year.“St. Louis knows how to throw a festival … bringing people together to celebrate our culture is one of the things we do best as a city,” Kerrigan said in a statement. “Should Q in the Lou try to come back next year or any year after that, they’ll have the support of the Mayor Jones administration.”

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Alton’s Jacoby Arts Center likely to relocate permanently

Published

1 month ago

August 27, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The Jacoby Arts Center, a staple of Alton for many in the Metro East community, will likely permanently move out of its downtown building at the end of September.Its departure and relocation from the historic building that the arts center has called home for the past 20 years has created a tense situation for not only the arts center’s supporters but also the local development company working to revitalize Alton’s downtown that owns the building.“It’s an unfortunate situation,” said Chad Brigham, the chief legal and administrative officer with AltonWorks, the real estate company owned by another prominent local attorney working to develop the town. “I wish there wasn’t misunderstanding and disappointment in the community. It’s difficult sometimes to clarify that.”When news of the likely departure spread in June via a letter from the Jacoby Arts Center to its supporters, an outcry on social media quickly followed. Some assumed it would be the end of the arts center.“There’s a lot of feelings right now that I think are more about the building itself than there are about the Jacoby Arts Center,” said Valerie Hoven, vice president and treasurer of the nonprofit arts center’s board.For supporters of the Jacoby, moving from the building and likely never returning will be a sad affair. Exactly what’s next for the arts center remains unclear. However, Jacoby board members believe this will not be the end of the organization. It will likely look different though.

Sophie Proe

St. Louis Public RadioThe Jacoby Arts Center earlier this month in downtown Alton

Sophie Proe

St. Louis Public RadioThe Alton-based Jacoby Arts Center features more than 75 St. Louis-area artists and their work.

The history of the buildingFirst dubbed the Madison County Arts Council, the nonprofit arts center renamed itself after the Jacoby family gave it the current building in 2004. AltonWorks founder John Simmons purchased the Jacoby Building in September 2018, according to property records from the county.Managing the large building, at 627 E. Broadway, became too expensive for the Jacoby Arts Center. In 2018, the organization approached Simmons to purchase it, said Dennis Scarborough, a past president of the board and a downtown business owner.“Of course, it sounded really, really good,” Scarborough said of Simmons’ purchase. “He took over the insurance, property taxes, all those kinds of things that were really, really getting into our budget, and he rented it to us at a fair price.”The two parties entered into a lease agreement initially for five years. Since then, Simmons has spent more than $1 million in upkeep, taxes, insurance and more on the building. The lease has been extended twice until the end of September this year.Over the six years, Jacoby paid $1,500 per month, which covered a portion of the utilities.“It’s been wonderfully generous of AltonWorks,” Hoven said.Because the building is aging and needs repairs, Brigham with AltonWorks and those connected to the arts center have long known the Jacoby Arts Center would need to relocate — at least temporarily.

Renovations on the Jacoby building will begin this fall. They’ll include modernizing the aging building, repairing the old elevator and putting in apartments on the second and third floors.

News of the likely departure and controversyRenovations will begin this fall. They’ll include modernizing the aging building, repairing the old elevator and putting in apartments on the second and third floors.In May, it became clear that a preliminary proposal for the arts center to return to the building after renovations finished in 2026 would not work for them, Hoven said.She estimates the first floor and basement of the Jacoby Arts Building span roughly 20,000 square feet.

Chad Brigham is a business and legal adviser for AltonWorks.

AltonWorks’ initial idea floated to the arts center would only provide 2,553 square feet, according to both Hoven and Brigham. While the board calculated the price for the new space to be at least triple the current payment, Brigham said there was never a specific price discussed.“No discussion in terms of actual rent price,” he said.AltonWorks didn’t make a specific rent offer because the organization doesn’t even know itself, Brigham said.In addition to cash from John Simmons, there will be loans, tax increment financing and state tax credits to cover the $20 million in building renovations. The entities financing the cost of renovations will also help determine the rent when the construction is complete, Brigham said.Regardless, the price required to return will be too much for the arts center to pay, Hoven said. Also, the organization would like to maintain the many programs it offers to the community — a rentable event space, a dark room and a clay studio, for example — in the future.“For us to really meet the needs of the community and be sustainable, we need a space where we can offer some of those programs — the artists’ shop, and other spaces that offer some kind of income as well — so that we can continue to give money back to the community,” she said.AltonWorks offered at least two other locations as possible alternatives from their vast stock of buildings along Broadway to house the arts center during the roughly 18 months of construction. Those alternatives came with similar deals requiring the Jacoby to cover only utilities, Brigham said.“We did put in a great deal of work behind the scenes in trying to find an interim solution,” Brigham said. “We wanted to find a place for them to go, where it was easy for them to continue programming, whether it’s 100% of it or some portion of it, that would work for them.”Initially, the arts center hoped to keep the basement during the renovations, Hoven said. When it became clear the preliminary offer to return was for much less space than the arts center anticipated, the letter to the community was sent.“The letter that came out was merely showing our surprise,” Hoven said. “Don’t misinterpret it as panic. Don’t misinterpret it as desperation.”

Sophie Proe

St. Louis Public RadioA smorgasbord of radios are displayed at the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton.

The commentary on social media was passionate. Some critics of AltonWorks said the organization has good intentions but hasn’t executed those plans. Others said Jacoby hasn’t planned well enough for the future.For Brigham and the AltonWorks team, some of the criticism has been disappointing.“I thought that there were some decent solutions. Were they perfect? No, but they were very, I thought, very good solutions,” he said. “And the fact that it has come to the point that it is right now is a bit hurtful.”AltonWorks remains committed to the arts, Brigham said. John Simmons remains one the largest donors of the Jacoby Arts Center, Hoven and Brigham said.“I don’t think there’s ever been a question of our support of that organization — of our affinity for that organization,” Brigham said. “While some of the events were unfortunate, some of them were encouraging. The entire community rallied around the Jacoby Arts Center. That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to have a love for the arts like that in a downtown community.”Sara McGibany, the executive director of Alton Main Street, an organization aimed at preserving the town, said AltonWorks should be commended for its vision. In many ways, her organization and AltonWorks share a vision for a thriving downtown.Even though AltonWorks hosts public meetings, McGibany believes the current situation lacks true community engagement.“We really think that if AltonWorks can get past some of the communication hurdles — and harness the community’s passion and shift to more of a bottom-up decision-making process that centers on community input — then we can turn around the growing sentiment of distrust that’s happening now,” McGibany said.Scarborough, the past board president and downtown business owner, echoed the praise for Simmons and his support of the Jacoby Arts Center. With the Jacoby likely moving, the future looks bleak, though.“It’s a community arts center that does a lot of good work,” Scarborough said. “The community is going to suffer, and they’re going to be missed by the community if they’re not there.”

Eric Lee

St. Louis Public RadioShalanda Young, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, talks to Illinois U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, during a tour of a construction project by AltonWorks last April in Alton. AltonWorks, who is building the LoveJoy Apartment Complex is receiving over $1 million in federal funding.

What does the future hold?AltonWorks will continue forging ahead with its ambitious plans to revitalize Alton. The organization hopes to conclude construction on the Wedge Innovation Center, which will have a restaurant, retail and co-working space, this fall. Lucas Row, a mix of apartments and retail space, is scheduled to be completed next spring.The remainder of the arts and innovation district, currently named after the Jacoby, will also move forward.“I believe in two years it’s going to be a much different place,” Brigham said of Alton. “It’s going to be thriving. It’s going to be new businesses, new tenants — and it’s going to be a nice proof of concept for what you can do in a small community like that.”The Jacoby board recently formed a strategic planning committee. Its task: figuring out what’s next for the arts center. The committee will reevaluate what space the Jacoby needs, what programs it wants to offer to the community and how they want to make that a reality.Keeping the arts center is essential for board members like Hoven. In her experience, it’s been a place where local aspiring artists get their start.“Art is one of the only ways to show your true authentic self,” Hoven said. “And there’s more people than I realized who do not get that opportunity every day.”The Jacoby will shut its doors to pack over the next month. Hoven said she’s optimistic the board will have concrete plans by the end of September when their lease officially ends.“Alton is such a fabulous and supportive community,” she said. “We still have lots of great options, so that the Jacoby Arts Center will continue to thrive in Alton and beyond.”

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