BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — Bowling Green State University was recently awarded $550,000 in CARES Act assistance through the Economic Development Administration that will create a COVID-19 recovery plan for the region.
The project will be matched with $141,536 in local funds, including $100,000 from JobsOhio, to develop a workforce strategy and COVID-19 recovery plan for Lucas, Wood, Ottawa and Fulton counties.
The BGSU Center for Regional Development and the Regional Growth Partnership have worked together for nearly a year in anticipation of the grant. A set of metrics will be developed first, then a plan for recovery efforts.
RGP of Northwest Ohio’s Joe Luzar leads the Northwest Ohio Workforce Initiative.
“The workforce side is a really hard environment to work in, but there's a lot of really innovative programs and people who are doing great work,” Luzar said. “The idea is to take what's working well and try to not reinvent the wheel, but just try to highlight those best practices and spread them across the region in a plan that does that.
"One of the key things that we don't have in the region is a set of metrics by which we're measuring what's working well and what isn't working well.”