Goal Setting for Alliances
How an Industry Alliance Sets Goals and Measures Success


Overview

The Lake Area Industry Alliance (LAIA) is a non-profit association of the petrochemical plants and refineries in Southwest Louisiana. It is comprised of 26 member companies, whose plant managers meet each month to work on common issues and advance their goals.

Their goals have been developed to support both the broader mission of the alliance and the specialized missions of the committees. The LAIA goals are (1) to provide a forum to inform the public about industry issues, (2) to foster strong industry-community relations, (3) to build a positive business environment, and (4) to develop programs of common benefit to the member companies. The standing committees that work to accomplish these goals include Communications, Community Awareness Emergency Response (CAER), Environmental, Community Advisory Panels, and Process Technology (PTEC™) Advisory.


Challenges to Achieving Goals

Often it is difficult for industry and education to work together on projects. Industry may have the funding to make projects happen, and moves at a fast pace, adapting to change more readily with the supply infrastructure in place to meet customer needs. Whereas, the education environment is generally slower-paced, with funding allocated to knowledge transfer. Change, when it happens, occurs over a longer period of time and may require more documentation and procedures to accomplish. Educators want people to be successful and business is occupied with results and the “bottom-line.”


Factors to Success

The differences between these working methods create a challenge to industry and education representatives when they try to accomplish joint goals. The LAIA attributes its success in meeting these challenges to five factors:
  • The alliance is a true partnership, involving close cooperation between parties with joint rights and responsibilities
  • Members are decision makers and have the authorization to act on these decisions
  • Each committee has focused and defined end products and/or goals
  • Industry and education are committed to each other’s success
  • There is active participation between all members

As a result, within the LAIA, industry has come to understand how educators think and work, and educators are familiar with how industry operates. This blend enhances the dialogue between partners – producing a can-do attitude and measurable results.


Project Accomplishments

Several projects have been accomplished by the LAIA through focused goals:
  • Economic Impact Study (www.laia.com/EconomicImpact2004.asp), Community Surveys and an Advocacy Program
  • Web Site development (www.laia.com)
  • Speakers Forum (www.laia.com/speakers.asp)
    — A list of prepared speaking topics is provided and specific topics can be requested
  • Community Advisory Panels (CAP) (employment brochure)
    — Each CAP represents a geographic area (i.e., I-10 corridor, west side of Lake Charles)
    — Human resources and public relations personnel and plant managers meet with the community to address a specific topic. The community participants can ask questions and get answers while a neutral third party facilitates the meeting.
  • Annual Paint Collection (www.laia.com/pr020422.asp)
  • Ambient Air Monitoring Network (www.laia.com/pr030729.asp)
    — One hundred and four chemical compounds are monitored at five sites. The results are posted on a public website.
  • Chemical Expo
    — An annual event, which most recently was attended by 2,600 6th grade students and run by 300+ volunteers. This event received national recognition.
  • CAER (Community Awareness Emergency Response) (www.laia.com/CAER_history.asp)
    — Facilitates local emergency response activities through the emergency notification systems in coordination with the local emergency planning committee and the local Office of Emergency Management
    — Provides a community outreach program to educate and inform the public
  • Children’s Museum
  • PTEC “Blitz”
    — Each event lasts one hour or less and is an opportunity to recruit students for the STeP summer camp (www.laia.com/PTEC/SummerCamp.htm), the PTEC career, and to inform high school teachers and counselors about PTEC.
  • Promotion and brand identification of PTEC by brochure development


Functions of the PTEC Advisory Committee

The PTEC advisory committee is a partnership between industry and educators that was formed to actively contribute to the growth and development of area PTEC programs. Members represent the training and human resource functions of LAIA member companies and the department heads from McNeese State University and Sowela Technical Community College.

In particular, the PTEC Advisory Committee has two main functions — its members work with the local institutions that offer the PTEC degree in an advisory capacity and inform the community about PTEC. Committee objectives are to: (1) increase enrollment, (2) conduct program audits, (3) review skills needed by process operators, (4) evaluate PTEC graduates, and (5) ensure continual improvement. All committee members are empowered decision makers with a defined end product — PTEC graduates.

When a specific project is begun, the committee members carefully prepare their presentation for the LAIA. They propose the activities required for a project and the dollar amount these activities require, provide measurable objectives and a total budget figure, and back up their idea with survey results whenever possible.


Advisory Committee Goals

To reach the community, the PTEC Advisory Committee sets specific goals. The committee includes PTEC specific questions in the annual LAIA Economic Impact Study survey. The survey reaches approximately 6,000 people in the Lake Charles area. PTEC questions were developed to check the public’s perception of the Process Technology career. Four questions ask about technician pay in relation to the average area wage, the stability of the PTEC career, education requirements to be a process technician, and the availability of job openings within the field. The 2005 survey results are included in the LAIA and PTEC presentation part 1 & LAIA and PTEC presentation part 2.

Promoting PTEC

A second goal for the PTEC Advisory committee is to inform the community on the education requirements for a process technician and the changes an aging workforce will create in the future PTEC job market. To get the word to as many people as possible in a cost-effective way, the committee uses print and radio ads along with PTEC “blitz” events. These events are held at area high schools — the 2005 round of “blitz” events reached 12 high schools in Calcasieu Parish, 345 students and over 50 teachers and counselors. The 2006 goals included expanding the PTEC Blitz events to the 5 parish region. In 2006, the committee delivered the PTEC message to over 2,200 high school students from 20 high schools across Southwest Louisiana. (PTEC Blitz presentation)

“Blitz” events also provide an early opportunity to recruit female students for the PTEC Summer Camp for Girls. Teacher in-service events provide an additional opportunity to inform educators about PTEC. (Teacher In-service presentation)


Measuring Success

The PTEC Advisory Committee sets specific criteria to determine if their initiatives are successful. Success is measured by:
  • An increased enrollment of 25 percent in area PTEC programs, per year
  • An increase of at least 25 percent in the number of graduates in 2006-2007

Although the second metric will not be available until after 2007, prior to hurricane Rita in 2005, McNeese State University’s enrollment had increased by 37 percent and Sowela Technical Community College’s enrollment by 86 percent over the previous year.

Finally, each year the goals are revisited during LAIA PTEC Advisory Committee meetings. At that time, feedback from the year’s activities is evaluated to determine the goals for the upcoming year and make changes to improve future activities.