By Kara Asmus, Workforce Development Coordinator

I’m just going to say it. I detest acronyms. Unless you own the company or you are part of a special group, acronyms can often be challenging when conveying information.

Inevitably, however, an acronym will spawn on its own, and recently the Business, Industry and Education Committee decided it would create a new name for our workforce development committee to give more insight into the group’s purpose.

The committee started as a partnership between business leaders and education professionals to address workforce shortages in our area. While the group continues to accomplish a great deal in the workforce development arena, we want to increase opportunities to grow our business and professional partnerships.

“Workforce CAPTURE” stands for: Columbus Area Partnerships and Training United for Recruitment/ Retention, and Education. Yep. There is an extra R in there that is not represented in CAPTURE, but our grammatical adherence does not allow us to spell it incorrectly.

The name retains our purpose of being workforce development driven, and we cannot lose the solid partnership between education and industry, so we keep education in the name too; yet our intentions to inspire and capture the attention of new workers and businesses is represented in the acronym.

Since changing the name, I’ve had several people inquire if they can get involved. The answer is YES! We meet at 7 am on the first Tuesday of every month (unless it immediately follows a holiday, then we shift a week) at the Chamber of Commerce. Keep an eye on the Chamber of Commerce calendar and plan to attend.

We share information about workforce needs in our area, and work as a team, using dozens of strategies to recruit, retain, and train individuals for the workforce.

A healthy workforce is absolutely vital to the future success of our community, and we invite you to join us in growing ours at the next Workforce CAPTURE meeting on Oct. 1 at 7 a.m. or next month on Nov. 5.