Grand Rapids, MICHIGAN – Cascade Engineering Inc. has gained national attention for helping welfare recipients transition to work. Now, the company is prepared to facilitate a national initiative to expand the effort, and will kick off the process next week in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, February 26, three top executives of Cascade Engineering will urge workforce boards from all 50 states to emulate the company’s welfare-to-career program – and will offer a national tutorial, in partnership with the State of Michigan, on how to make it work.

Cascade Engineering CEO Fred P. Keller – along with Ronald Jimmerson, Manager of Workforce Diversity and Community Partnerships, and David Barrett, Senior Organizational Consultant for Learning & Development – will make an hour-plus presentation to the National Association of Workforce Boards, which includes representatives from every U.S. state. The presentation will be part of NAWB’s Forum 2001.

Keller, Jimmerson and Barrett plan to work with Michigan officials to offer state workforce boards a national roundtable on how to start successful welfare-to-career programs like the one that helped earn Cascade Engineering the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership in 1998. Cascade Engineering, which employs over 1,000 people, currently has 119 employees who have joined the company through its welfare-to-career program. The company enjoys an excellent retention rate of 83 percent with its welfare-to-career employees, who represent over 40 percent of the company’s current new employee pool.

“The two most crucial elements are education and support services,” Keller said. "We had to first educate our own human resource people and Front Line Leadership to help them understand generational poverty, and then we educated the welfare recipients to help them gain self-awareness, and to understand the hidden rules of the middle class. The support should be in place in the work environment, such as on-site social workers and job coaches to help those transitioning from welfare to deal with issues that can occur during that time.”

Michael Goldman, Cascade Engineering Vice President of Business Services, said the company’s concern for employees creates a very positive atmosphere.

“We are trying to become an employer of choice, to achieve excellence, create value, and learn from each other,” Goldman said. “Doing right by people at this company is not just a means to an end. It is a business and moral imperative, and people respond accordingly.”

Cascade Engineering was included on the agenda at the recommendation of Michigan Gov. John Engler’s office. A delegation from the State of Michigan recently toured Cascade Engineering to learn how the program works, and state officials have touted it as a model for others to follow. After visiting Cascade Engineering, it was this delegation that submitted the proposal for Cascade to be among the presenters at Forum 2001.

“We are especially proud of the role our private sector employers are playing, not only in hiring people, but in giving them the tools and the skills necessary to be successful in the workforce,” said Janet Howard, director of welfare reform and director of the Michigan Department of Career Development. “Cascade Engineering has provided us with a cutting-edge model of what can be achieved when employee well-being is central to the company’s mission to be recognized as a corporate success and employer of choice.”