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Keller meets with community leaders

Sentinel photo by BRADLEY KREITZER
U.S. Congressman Fred Keller speaks during a meeting with the Mifflin County Industrial Development Corporation Wednesday afternoon.

LEWISTOWN — Congressman Fred Keller (R-PA 12th District) visited with business and community leaders at the Mifflin County Industrial Development Corporation meeting Wednesday afternoon with the intent to have a discussion about problems or concerns in the area and issues that Congress should be working on to improve the Juniata River Valley.

“I appreciate everybody’s work in making our community as strong as it is and the improvements we can look at together for our families that live here in Mifflin County and Juniata County,” Keller stated. “It is a pleasure to be here today and learn what’s on your mind and what we should be working on.”

Keller gave an update of what he is working on in Congress: “I am on the Education and Labor Committee, which is a huge thing and a benefit to our district,” Keller said. “The way I look at that is we are looking at workforce development and things that we can do to help make sure people have training for the jobs that employers need. In addition to that, to make sure any laws or anything being looked at that are regulatory, we can take a look at those things to make sure there is no detrimental impact to our businesses.”

Keller is also on the Oversight and Reform Committee, which is the main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. The committee has authority to investigate the subjects within its legislative jurisdiction as well as “any matter” within the jurisdiction of the other standing House committees.

“Our team here in the district and in D.C. is focused on making sure we look at policies that promote job training and help our businesses, and a lot of that comes down to regulatory issues and making sure we are not putting too many regulations on you,” Keller said.

Keller also said veteran’s issues are very important to his team and encourages anyone who may need help or knows of anyone who is dealing with a veterans issue to contact the veterans liaison, Michael Knouse, at the Selinsgrove office.

Nick Felice, president and CEO of MCIDC, began the discussion with the concern of the number of individuals in the area who are applying for work, especially in the manufacturing sector.

“The numbers are not there,” Felice said. “A lot of manufacturers have conveyed that to me and others who are involved in workforce development. It’s a scary situation in the sense from an economic development perspective trying to bring businesses in as our existing businesses are having a hard time growing.”

Felice also brought up the problem of finding employees but also qualified job candidates with employability and work ethic.

John Campbell, of Marlette/Clayton Homes, echoed Felice’s point.

“It’s definitely a concern. Clayton has 40 plants across the country and of those 40 plants, not one is overburdened with qualified workers that they have to turn away,” Campbell said. “It’s a paramount factor in our industry that we are able to find workers. They don’t have to come in skilled, we’ll be glad to train them, they just have to have a willing attitude and show up every day.”

Another issue Clayton Homes deals with is transportation.

“It’s very important to us that with federal regulations getting tighter and tighter on the trucking industry and the e-logs, all those different types of things. Our company ships homes all over the country and we want to make sure it’s done safely and done with care, but yet there are times with height restrictions or whatever that it becomes very costly,” Campbell noted.

Keller addressed the issue of transportation by asking if the regulations are different from state to state and if a reciprocal agreement between the states, as far as oversized loads, would help the situation.

“You bring up a excellent point,” Campbell noted. “There are different rules per state and there are different rules per building code. There was an effort made several years ago to the international residential code so that different states could all come into one national building code and we wouldn’t have to worry about differences state to state.”

Keller then addressed the problem of training the workforce.

“When I was in manufacturing we didn’t care if that person knew about wood and those kinds of things. Did they show up to work? Did they know how to take direction? Can we train them into what we need them to do? Whether it’s someone who is working a production line, or control, or I.T., whatever it is, we’ll train you for what we want. We just want the person that has the foundational skills.”

Steve Krentzman then asked what would have to be done to create a workforce with such foundational skills.

“It starts at a very young age when you are talking about putting those values or instilling those values of work ethic and so fourth into an individual,” Keller stated. “I do think there are examples of things that government can do. Incentivizing people to work. If you look at some of the programs we’ve designed to help people, there are people that need help and people we should help. But, when someone gets a job and all the benefits go away, you are incentivizing that person not to work.”

Keller suggested shaving down benefits as people enter the workforce. “So if somebody gets a job, you say, ‘Okay, if you get a job, we’re not going to take all of your benefits. We’re going to take a portion of them.’ Then as they start to earn more, we scale those benefits back. We give that person an incentive to work.”

Rhonda Moore, Chamber of Commerce executive director, commented on the chambers business and education committee and their efforts to bridge the gap between educators and businesses with student in the workplace tours, surveys for job interests and mock interviews. CareerLink business consultant Cher Harpster added they need more participation from industries.

“Schools want to hear from businesses. The business and education committee is a vehicle to make that dialog happen,” Harpster said. “Our workforce development board created a website because of these issues called ‘Path to Careers’ with the idea that employers can register themselves on this website to host job shadows or host a tour or do mock interviews or have internships. There are a whole host of things that an employer can do to try to get the word out about opportunities.” Employers can register a point of contact at their company and on the other end, schools can register and search for different opportunities that are being offered.

Dave Becker, head of operations at Phillips Ultrasound, later made Rep. Keller aware of the issue of the medical device tax which is a 2.3 percent arbitrary tax placed on certain medical devices that producers have to pay. The tax will go back into effect in January if nothing is changed. Another issue Becker brought to light was related to the Food and Drug Administration regulations on medical device manufacturers for patients safety. Becker said there is a problem with third party companies that do service repair that are not regulated by the FDA.

“It undermines our industry and our brand and puts our patients at risk,” Becker said. “I would encourage you if you come upon that discussion to really challenge why.”

Krentzman asked if these types of discussions happen in the committees that Keller is a part of. Keller said he had some committee hearings in Washington D.C. and his time in the capitol right now is spent getting to know other members of Congress and gauging their interests.

“Everything we do in life is about relationships. What I’m doing is building those relationships so I can take this discussion down to Washington and say, ‘I met with business people in Mifflin County and these are the things we are running into. These are the things people are talking about,'” Keller said. “I intend on acting in Washington the same way I did in Harrisburg and that’s how we got things done.”

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