DATE: Thursday, September 11, 1997          TAG: 9709110709

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   93 lines

ODU TRAINING CENTER WOULD TARGET HIGH-TECH JOBS THE STATE'S GROWING COMPUTER INDUSTRY NOW LACKS A SUFFICIENT SOURCE OF LABOR.

The head of a powerful technology trade group early this year hit Old Dominion University President James Koch with a problem:

There are 190,000 vacancies nationwide for information technology workers, 18,000 in Northern Virginia, 2,000 in Hampton Roads. And universities and colleges, Harris Miller told Koch, don't seem to be lifting a finger to train technology workers.

``It's like running out of iron ore in the middle of the industrial revolution,'' says Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America. ``The basic commodity of the information revolution is people and their brains.''

Now, Koch and ODU have responded to Miller's plea by proposing a technology training center that would pump out 450 trained workers each year.

The Hampton Roads Work Force Technology Center is to be modeled after the computer industry companies whose jobs it would fill: quick on its feet, ready to shift its focus at any time, Koch said.

The center wouldn't solve the worker shortage facing ITAA's members - Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Netscape and hundreds of smaller tech companies. But it might be a prototype that ITAA could use with other universities and colleges to stem the growing shortage of technology workers.

The shortage of trained computer programmers, Webmasters and network engineers threatens to short-circuit the gains the state and this region have made over the past few years in recruiting technology companies.

``These are jobs that may not require a college education,'' Koch said. ``What they require is smart people who have been trained.''

One of every 10 information technology jobs is going unfilled, the ITAA reports. Companies are shifting business to countries such as India and Malaysia, where there are trained workers.

Lack of workers means the state's computer industry companies cannot find help to fuel their businesses, which are growing at three times the rate of the rest of the state's economy.

By not having trained workers, the state and Hampton Roads are also leaving unfilled jobs that pay 25 percent to 50 percent more than the average job in Virginia, ITAA reports.

The training center's first effort this fall will be an intensive 10-week ``boot camp'' to teach the COBOL computer programming language. Recoding in COBOL is essential to troubleshooting the Year 2000 computer problem.

Programmers created that problem themselves during the 1960s, '70s and even '80s when they coded mainframe computers with only two-digit years: 1999 was just 99, for instance. The old mainframes lasted longer than the programmers thought. In a couple of years, when the calendar flips over to 2000, many computers won't know whether it is the year 2000, 1900, 1800 or whatever.

That's why ITAA's members need COBOL programmers - and soon.

``Obviously, they are not going to be COBOL experts, but they'll be able to go in and do something,'' Koch said.

ITAA's members are also looking for Certified Network Engineers, C++ programmers, Webmasters and Web developers.

ODU will request $2.6 million from the state to launch and run the center. Another $2.6 million would come from ITAA, its members and other employers who would like to sponsor students or courses.

ODU itself has 25 openings for information technology workers. The openings have become ``almost permanent'' vacancies, the university says. Sentara Health System has 34 such vacancies, ODU reported.

The shortage is also cutting into technology companies' profits: Annual salary increases of 25 percent have been needed to retain certain employees, ITAA says. A Microsoft-certified systems engineer - a non-college-degree job requiring a year of training - can earn about $45,000 a year.

``If the commonwealth wishes to maintain a position as a high-tech state, then a qualified labor force must be available,'' says David Harnage, ODU's vice president of administration and finance.

ODU training programs will take three different approaches:

Training 250 people for about 12 months for entry-level jobs such as COBOL programming, Webmaster or Certified Network Engineer.

Retraining about 100 people who have college degrees in other fields.

Increasing by 100 each year the number of ODU students pursuing information technology-related degrees.

Since the center would be a university subsidiary, it would be able to provide industry-directed training with a quick turnaround, Koch said. It would be able to avoid restrictions such as faculty tenure and teaching load issues, he said.

The training center would be based in ODU's new section east of Hampton Boulevard in Norfolk, but satellites would be set up in Virginia Beach, Hampton/Newport News, Chesapeake/Portsmouth/Suffolk and Northern Virginia.

ODU would also make the program available through TELETECHNET - its distance-learning system - at more than 30 other sites across the state. ODU has already taught a COBOL course through the distance program.

If ODU's pilot program for COBOL programmers works, ITAA's Miller said, the industry group would use it as a model to show other universities what can be done.

The worker shortage is the result of not only colleges' and universities' shortcomings, but of the technology industry's lack of innovation in recruiting, Miller said.

``For industry to just sit back and wait for the colleges and universities to crank out these grads just isn't working,'' he said.

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