Our bags are packed, and we are ready to go! As you probably know by now, ASTD will be heading to Capitol Hill next week to meet with members of Congress. We will have about 50+ members attending this event. We will be talking to members (and their staffs) about two important issues. Our main goal is to meet with our Congressional members and to start to develop a working partnership with them on training and workforce development legislation.

We will be discussing the ARRA (Stimulus Package), thanking them for investing in more worker training and retraining, letting them know about the research ASTD has done around skills gap and that it's very important to ensure that recovery funds are tied to specific employer needs. We will be suggesting that the upcoming grants which are part of the recovery package are used to invest in worker training in green and high growth industries.

The second item we will be discussing is the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). The bill is now being discussed in sub-committee on the House side. We will be reinforcing themes that we have talked about over the past several years as this legislation has been debated before. We would like to see local boards smaller and more focused on the needs of employers. We would like to see better representation of local industry. We would like to see better performance metrics of the training resources and that the One Stop System is more customer friendly to both employers and workers.

After our meetings, we will be heading back to the convention center to debrief and chat about how our meeting went and next steps in keeping these important connecting moving forward. We will talk about how to keep all of us engaged in this "conversation" with Congress. If you are coming to the conference and are not able to come to the Hill, feel free to join us for the debrief session. If you would like to stay connect to our policy efforts, email ASTD at [email protected].

See you in DC!