Hampton Roads employers need skilled workers faster than the region's traditional pipelines can produce them, and the pool of local graduates is projected to shrink in the years ahead.

Sam Dreyfus, Executive Vice President at ECPI University, makes the case for a broader regional workforce strategy in a new op-ed for The Virginian-Pilot, titled Coastal Virginia Knows How to Build. Let's Build the Workforce for What Comes Next.The Virginian-Pilot is the largest daily newspaper in Virginia, serving Hampton Roads since 1865.

Read the full piece to learn more about the current state of the region’s workforce and what higher education can do to support its future.

Why is Coastal Virginia facing a skilled worker shortage?

Coastal Virginia has strong advantages, including a major port, military bases, and an established industrial base, but employers still can't find enough skilled workers. The maritime trades are short thousands of technical workers, and Virginia further faces a statewide nursing shortage. 

Dreyfus argues that the region cannot close the gap by competing over the same pool of qualified workers. The pool itself has to grow, which means preparing people who fall outside the traditional path: working adults, career changers, veterans, and military spouses.

He traces the idea back to 1966, when his grandfather, Alfredy Dreyfus, founded what would become ECPI University to prepare workers then for new careers in technology. Today's shortage, he suggests, is the same challenge in a new form.

How does ECPI University help expand the region's talent pool?

ECPI University is built for exactly the kind of workforce Coastal Virginia needs to grow. Most of its undergraduates are older than the traditional college student, with an average age between 29 and 32. Many are working adults, parents, and career changers earning a degree while holding down a job.

Serving them means rethinking how programs are structured. An accelerated schedule and advisors who understand their reality make it possible for the veterans, working adults, and career changers the region needs to actually finish.

Those programs also keep pace with how the work itself is changing. ECPI University has built a framework for how students use AI across their coursework, so graduates enter the workforce already fluent in the tools their fields now rely on.