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27–188 PDF 2017

S. HRG. 115–91 

NEW HAMPSHIRE’S WORKFORCE CHALLENGE: 

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO ATTRACTING 

AND RETAINING SKILLED WORKERS 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

AUGUST 22, 2017 

Printed for the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

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COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho, Chairman 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire, Ranking Member 

MARCO RUBIO, Florida 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SKIFFINGTON E. HOLDERNESS, Republican Staff Director 

SEAN MOORE, Democratic Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS

Page 

Shaheen, Hon. Jeanne, a U.S. Senator from New Hampshire ............................ 1 

WITNESSES

Zanchuk, Val, President, Graphicast, Jaffrey, NH ............................................... 4 

Koheil, Tamer, Center Director, Job Corps, Manchester, NH ............................. 9 

Przybyszewski, Phil, Workforce Solutions Project Director, Community College System of New Hampshire, Sector Partnership Initiative, Manchester, 

NH ......................................................................................................................... 13 

Warren, Emily Hall, Director of Administration, Badger Balm, Gilsum, NH .... 21 

Whitaker, Lisa, Director of Associate Services, Omni Mt. Washington Resort, 

Bretton Woods, NH .............................................................................................. 25 

ALPHABETICAL LISTING

Koheil, Tamer 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 11 

NEMO Equipment, Inc. 

Letter dated September 1, 2017 ...................................................................... 36 

Przybyszewski, Phil 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18 

Shaheen, Hon. Jeanne 

Opening statement ........................................................................................... 1 

Warren, Emily Hall 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 21 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 23 

Whitaker, Lisa 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 27 

Zanchuk, Val 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

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NEW HAMPSHIRE’S WORKFORCE CHALLENGE: 

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO ATTRACTING 

AND RETAINING SKILLED WORKERS 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2017 

UNITED STATES SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS

AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP, 

Nashua, NH. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:00 a.m., in the 

Demoulas Room, Rivier University Benoit Education Building, 29 

Clement Street, Hon. Jeanne Shaheen presiding. 

Present: Senator Shaheen. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEANNE SHAHEEN, RANKING 

MEMBER, AND A U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Senator SHAHEEN. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship 

Committee’s field hearing in Nashua on Workforce Development 

will officially come to order. 

I would like to ask Sister Paula Buley, who is the President of 

Rivier University, if she would like to say a few words and just 

thank her very much, and thank Rivier, for hosting us this morning. 

Sister BULEY. Senator, thank you. 

Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Welcome to Rivier University. We are delighted to have you. 

Senator, we’re also honored to have you. Thank you for your 

leadership in the areas that mean so much to higher education, the 

STEM workforce development, small businesses, and, of course, exporting the best of New Hampshire’s economy. 

Rivier joins you all today as a key participant in workforce development, for that is what we truly do. Through our innovative employment partners, we have students on day 1 consider the careers 

that they will enter upon at graduation, and our expansive behavioral health programs that are serving the State in a particular 

way as we consider treatment, prevention, and recovery in substance abuse. 

So, Senator, for your energy and for your leadership, thank you; 

and to all that join us today, you’re most welcome. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you very much. 

[Applause.] 

And I do want to echo what Sister Paula has said about the role 

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shire, has played in supporting our business community and trying 

to address the workforce issues that we have. 

Now, before I introduce our official panel, let me just recognize 

some of the people who are here this morning. 

Jim Donchess, who is the Mayor of Nashua, is here. There he is, 

in the front row. Thank you for joining us for the hearing. 

We have the head of the Small Business Administration in New 

Hampshire, the District Director, Greta Johansson. Nice to have 

you here, Greta. 

And Rich Grogan and Warren Daniel. Rich is the head of the 

Small Business Development Centers, and Warren is one of the 

people who works very hard for the SBDCs. 

We also have members of my Small Business Advisory Council 

who work with me on small business issues: Adria Bagshaw in the 

front row; Peter Antoinette; and Mark Lane. So, thank you all for 

being here as well. 

I should also introduce Zenagui Brahim, who is the head of our 

Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which does a great job dealing with issues affecting manufacturing businesses. 

We also have a number of representatives from the New Hampshire Job Corps who are here. Can I just ask all of you to—thank 

you all very much for being here. 

Let me also recognize members of the Small Business Committee 

who are here from Washington today. We have Sean Moore, who 

is the Director of the Minority staff on the Small Business Committee. 

And I hesitate to call up Minority staff because the Small Business Committee, despite what you may have heard in other areas, 

works very closely together in a strong, bipartisan way. 

We’re pleased to have Tara Schonhoff, who is here from the Majority, sent by Senator Risch, who is my colleague from Idaho who 

chairs the Small Business Committee, and I’m the ranking member. 

We also have Brian Weiss and Kathryn Eden, who is the Clerk 

of the committee. They are here—raise your hand, Brian and Kathryn—so they can make sure that we conduct everything in the appropriate, official way. 

Because this is an official hearing of the Small Business Committee, we will not be allowing questions from the audience. That’s 

the way the rules work in Washington at hearings, so we will be 

hearing statements from our panelists. Then we will have a roundtable discussion about the issues, and we will allow written testimony from anybody in the audience who would like to submit it. 

So with all of that as background, let me again welcome all of 

you this morning and thank you very much for coming to this discussion that I hope will be profitable as you think about the workforce challenges we face in New Hampshire. 

Everywhere I’ve been as I’ve traveled the State in the last several years, the number-one concern I hear from our businesses is 

they can’t get the workers that they need, the skilled workers who 

have the training and the background and the experience and the 

knowledge, and even in terms of businesses who are willing to 

train their workers, they’re finding it hard to find people. We’re fortunate because we have the fourth lowest unemployment rate in 

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the country, but that’s presented its own particular challenges. So 

this is an issue that I hope we can examine today. 

New Hampshire is a small business State. More than half of our 

private workforce is employed by small businesses, and I’m sure we 

all know the statistic that’s one of my favorites that Greta shares 

everywhere she goes, and that is two-thirds of the jobs that are created come from small businesses. 

But dynamic industries like advanced manufacturing and technology require skills that some of our schools may not yet be prepared to teach. So this is one reason that our workforce training 

programs need to be flexible. We’ve got to keep pace with the evolving labor market so that Granite State workers can get the highskilled, high-wage jobs that are being created today. 

I’ve had the opportunity, as I said, to visit a number of businesses, and two I want to just call out because I found what they 

were doing very interesting. 

Recently I visited Admix, which is a small manufacturer in Londonderry, New Hampshire. They are an ESOP, an employee stock 

ownership program. They provide employees an ownership interest 

in the company, and we’re going to hear from a company like 

Admix on the panel today to talk about the benefits of being an 

ESOP. 

But one of the things that I was interested in when I talked to 

the employees at Admix, they said that even more important than 

that share in the company was the flexible schedule that they had. 

They had a schedule that allowed them to take certain Fridays off, 

and that that was what the employees said was most important to 

them. 

I also had the chance recently to visit Seacoast Harley-Davidson 

in Northampton. Because they were having trouble getting the 

skills they needed, they partnered with the Great Bay Community 

College to create a technician program, a 24-week course in motorcycle maintenance and repair. It was interesting to me that the 

only other two programs that do similar things in the country are 

in Florida and Arizona. So it’s understandable that we’re having 

trouble getting the trained technicians that we need. 

We know that our workforce challenges are complicated and they 

really require us to work together, the public and private sector at 

the State, municipal, and Federal level, to address these challenges. We’ve got to be creative, we’ve got to be flexible, we’ve got 

to look at what works and what doesn’t work, and that’s again 

what I’m hoping we can examine a little bit this morning as part 

of this discussion. 

Now let me again thank all of our witnesses who are here this 

morning. They all have extensive biographies that I am not going 

to read because I’m hoping that we can spend more time in discussion, but just know that they are all very skilled with lots of experience and good, creative ideas on this topic. 

I’m going to start with Val Zanchuk, who is at the far end there. 

He is the President of Graphicast, Inc., which is a Jaffrey-based 

manufacturer of precision machined zinc alloy castings. They’ve 

been in business since 1978. They are an ESOP company, and employees own about a third of the company. 

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Now, I’m not, as I said, going to go into all of Val’s vast experience in economic development in New Hampshire, but now he 

serves on the State Workforce Innovation Board, so he has particular insights into some of the State policies that are trying to address workforce. 

Next to Val is Tamer Koheil, who is the Center Director at our 

New Hampshire Job Corps Center. For all of you who know me, 

you know that I have a special place in my heart for the Job Corps 

Center because I started working on this over 20 years ago, when 

I was a governor, and it’s taken us a long time, but now it’s here 

and it’s doing a great job. 

Tamer, we’re delighted that you’re here this morning. 

Before he came to New Hampshire, he was the Center Director 

at the Shriver Job Corps in Fort Devens, Mass., where they consistently ranked among the top performing Job Corps centers in 

the country. So we know you’re going to bring that expertise to 

New Hampshire. 

Next to Tamer is Phil Przybyszewski, who is currently the Workforce Solutions Project Director at the Community College System 

of New Hampshire. Before that he was the Project Coordinator who 

managed and oversaw the implementation of all aspects of the 

TAACCCT Grant that we received in New Hampshire. It was a $20 

million-plus grant to work with companies and our community college system to try and provide the workers that we need for the 

future. 

Thank you for being here, Phil. 

On my right is Emily Hall Warren, who is the Director of Administration at the WS Badger Company, which is a family owned and 

family friendly business built around healthy living in the workplace. They are a B Corporation, which adds to transparency in the 

company’s social and environmental business practices. 

Before Emily went to Badger, she had extensive experience in 

human resources in training and advancement for Claremont Savings Bank and the Timken Company. 

So, thank you for being here. 

And finally, Lisa Whitaker probably came the farthest of anybody today. She is the Director of Associate Services at the Omni 

Mt. Washington Resort and Ski Area, and before that she was the 

Vice President of Human Resources at Granite Bank in Colebrook, 

New Hampshire. 

We are delighted to have all of you here. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas about what we should be doing in New 

Hampshire. 

I’m going to ask each of you to speak for—I know we told you 

5 minutes, but if you can stay a little under that, that will give us 

more opportunity to talk and be more interesting, I’m sure, as we 

engage around the ideas that you present. 

So let me begin with you, Val. 

STATEMENT OF VAL ZANCHUK, PRESIDENT, GRAPHICAST, 

JAFFREY, NH 

Mr. ZANCHUK. Thank you, Senator. I’ll speak as quickly as possible. 

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With New Hampshire’s low unemployment rate and a growing 

economy, attracting and retaining skilled employees is probably the 

first priority of every business in the State. 

However, our population demographics are not helping us meet 

this challenge. School enrollments are steadily declining. A large 

portion of our workforce will be retiring in the next five to ten 

years, and skill requirements are growing, with more emphasis on 

post-secondary education. 

Across the State, business, government, and education are working toward a common goal, which is that 65 percent of our workforce will possess a post-secondary education by the year 2025 to 

meet the demands of the economy. This goal, which we call 65 by 

25, is not arbitrary. A study by Georgetown University identified 

evolving workforce needs for every State based on each State’s 

economy and projected economic growth. 

For New Hampshire, we are currently at about 51 percent of our 

workforce having these skills. Through natural organic growth, we 

will reach about 58 percent by 2025. To get to the 65 percent level, 

however, which is essential for continued economic health, we will 

need to add about 50,000 more people in the State to attain this 

level of training. And, of course, the question is how are we going 

to do this? 

A starting point for individual companies, I think, is greater engagement, both with their employees and with their communities. 

Employee engagement, getting our employees to be part of the solution to business problems and challenges, is a break from the traditional command and control management structure. This trend is 

evident by the adoption of lean manufacturing and other techniques that bring everyone into the process of running the business. Ongoing training and tuition reimbursement plans also help 

increase skill levels of incumbent employees. These efforts help employees feel more valued and respected, and they are more likely, 

then, to stay with their employer. 

Increasingly, businesses need to get out of their comfort zones 

and reach out to their local school systems to help the schools understand the career opportunities and needs of businesses. These 

needs are not only academic skills but also include work habits and 

workplace expectations. Conversely, businesses need to understand 

the challenges of the educational system. This helps to establish 

common ground from which to work together to create graduates 

who are more aware and better prepared for careers. Internships, 

extended learning opportunities where students learn skills at a 

business, and mentoring are among the ways that businesses and 

schools can collaborate. 

The Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire and 

the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation are collaborating in 

this area. The BIA has established a workforce development effort 

focused on bringing businesses and schools together to accelerate 

the process of these career awareness collaborations. The BIA has 

collected information from its members who are already working 

with schools to use as a template for other businesses to model 

their own engagement. 

The BIA–Charitable Foundation partnership is also undertaking 

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cused on workforce development and post-secondary education. By 

developing metrics to measure our collective progress towards that 

goal, and by increasing awareness of each entity’s efforts, we hope 

to ensure we are working most effectively to accomplish our task. 

However, we will not reach 65 by 25 just through high school 

graduation rates. The decreasing school-age population will not 

provide enough people to meet the demand even if every student 

knew exactly what career path they planned to travel. We will help 

ourselves if we can increase in-State enrollment in our colleges and 

universities, as New Hampshire is one of the highest exporters of 

students to out-of-State higher education institutions. We will also 

help if we can retain more graduates within the State. Here business engagement, in the form of internships and sponsored research, is critical to this effort. All of this is part of the 65 by 25 

challenge. 

A second area of effort is retraining the underemployed for higher skilled jobs. New Hampshire has a large segment of people who 

have had some post-secondary education but no degrees. These capable people often do not know of the opportunities available in 

business, or of the educational and training resources already in 

place in the State to help them make a transition. The Strategic 

Partnership Initiatives are part of the solution to this challenge 

and will be discussed in more detail by Phil. 

Attracting skilled workers from out of State is the third way of 

meeting the 65 by 25 goal. As every State is also involved in a 

similar effort, New Hampshire has a lot of competition for these 

skilled workers. The particular advantage New Hampshire had in 

the past is no longer effective, as other states have improved their 

attractiveness to the skilled workforce. Immigration from other 

parts of the world can help overcome these issues, as New Hampshire still provides an attractive place to work and live for many 

educated people coming from other countries. 

I have highlighted a few of the many efforts underway in New 

Hampshire that are addressing the challenge of growing and retaining our skilled workforce. The common goal of 65 by 25 has 

been a way to focus these efforts. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Zanchuk follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thanks very much, Val. 

Tamer. 

STATEMENT OF TAMER KOHEIL, CENTER DIRECTOR, JOB 

CORPS, MANCHESTER, NH 

Mr. KOHEIL. Good morning and thank you, Senator. 

Again, my name is Tamer Koheil. I am the Director of the New 

Hampshire Job Corps located in Manchester, New Hampshire, the 

center which opened in 2015, designed to serve 300 students at a 

time. 

The center serves students from New England, primarily from 

New Hampshire. Participants are economically disadvantaged 

youth between the ages of 16 to 24. 

Job Corps is primarily a residential program. Students go 

through an admissions process prior to enrollment. Once in Job 

Corps, they live at the center and receive academic, vocational, and 

social skills training. 

The center is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have dormitories, recreational facilities, and wellness support for our students on our 30-acre campus. 

The New Hampshire center is a career and technical training 

and education center that offers comprehensive hands-on training 

in nine of New Hampshire’s most in-demand fields. Trade programs include Advanced Manufacturing, Electrical, Facilities Maintenance, Security Services, Culinary Arts, Hospitality Services, 

Medical Administrative Assistant, Clinical Medical Assistant, and 

Licensed Nursing Assistant. We also offer advanced college training programs in our CAD program, Computer Aided Design, Robotics, Registered Nursing, Hotel and Restaurant Management, Pharmacy Technician, and Cybersecurity. We have partnered with Manchester Community College, Nashua Community College, St. Joseph School of Nursing, and CVS to offer these programs. 

All of our instructors have years of experience working in the 

field that they teach. Our students receive industry recognized credentials and certificates that give them a leg up in the job market 

and assure employers that our students have the skills they are 

looking for. 

We also accept students with or without high school diplomas. 

Based on my more than 10 years of Job Corps experience, I have 

identified three proven strategies that actually help us prepare our 

students for the New Hampshire workforce. 

The first one is employability and soft skills development. So in 

addition to academic and vocational skills training, we dedicate significant time and effort helping our students develop their soft 

skills. Punctuality, being respectful, dressing appropriately, these 

are all vital components to successful employment. As a residential 

program, we conduct a number of employability skills development 

programs after the normal training day. Based on feedback from 

our business partners in the New Hampshire community, we know 

how important cultivating these life skills can be. 

The second factor is employer involvement. Active employer involvement is essential. We work closely with a number of New 

Hampshire employers to determine their training and workforce 

needs. We conduct Workforce Council meetings to have employers 

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review our curriculum, tour our training sites, meet with students 

to discuss career goals, and provide input into the certifications 

and skills needed to be prepared for above entry-level jobs. Many 

examples that we have, we have employers that currently work 

with us at the Omni Resorts Mt. Washington, Portsmouth Internal 

Medicine, Textiles Coated International, and many others. 

The third factor is actually work-based learning. A key component of our training is off-center work-based learning, commonly 

known as internships or work experience. Typically, students spend 

four to six weeks at a job site to receive on-the-job training. It is 

our goal to work closely with the employer in order to transform 

these experiences into full-time employment upon completion of Job 

Corps. However, we recognize that not all students will be hired 

after their internship. But it is a tremendous work experience and 

allows us to get employer feedback on how to strengthen the job 

readiness skills of our students. 

One of the things that we also work on with our employers is 

having a pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship program. We just 

signed an MOU with CVS for an apprenticeship program, and more 

to come. This is our direction to support the needs of the workforce 

these days. 

Also, I would like to mention that as an entity we are all about 

supporting small business. We have spent in the past year or so 

more than $1 million on various goods to support our mission. All 

were purchased from local small business vendors. 

Our program is for people that want to change their lives, who 

want to achieve their career and life goals. We give them marketable and highly sought skills so they can do that. 

In closing, I would like to extend my thanks to Senator Shaheen 

and the entire New Hampshire congressional delegation for all 

their efforts in supporting the mission of the New Hampshire Job 

Corps. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Koheil follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you, Tamer. 

Phil. 

We’re sharing mics this morning. 

STATEMENT OF PHIL PRZYBYSZEWSKI, WORKFORCE SOLUTIONS PROJECT DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM 

OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, SECTOR PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVE, 

MANCHESTER, NH 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. Hello there. My name is Phil 

Przybyszewski, and as the Senator did a great job pronouncing my 

name, I really appreciate that, because most people don’t. 

Senator SHAHEEN. I practiced. 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. It says here I work for the Community College System of New Hampshire, which is true, but I’m on loan to 

the Office of Workforce Opportunity to start a new program called 

Sector Partnership Initiative, and I’m going to talk about that 

today, and I appreciate the opportunity to do that, Senator. 

As you know, the adoption of a Sector Partnership Initiative or 

sector strategy in New Hampshire is a requirement of the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act of 2014. It’s not like an option. 

We’ll be doing this because we need to do it to continue getting the 

appropriate funds we need to support our workforce. 

The Office of Workforce Opportunity, which I work for within the 

Department of Business and Economic Affairs, on behalf of the 

State Workforce Innovation Board, was charged with implementing 

this new way of approaching workforce development, and the initiative was funded by a Federal grant—thank you so much—a National Emergency Grant, which included money for staff, and this 

is the staff right here, as well as training dollars that we use to 

provide training, support, as well as on-the-job training and reimbursement to companies who bring people into their facilities to get 

trained. 

Really of significance here is the fact that SPI is an industrydriven initiative. Even though I work for the community college, 

the intent of this program is to enable industry sectors to be able 

to run with this once we’ve got it set up and running, and we are 

well on our way to making that happen. 

The process began in 2015, so we’ve been at this for a little bit 

over two years. But since that time, a lot of the focus and effort 

has been devoted to developing sector partnerships in several key 

industries. A steering committee was established comprised of 

stakeholders from the industry, State agencies, community-based 

organizations, education and training providers, the DOL Office of 

Apprenticeship, and the Governor’s Office participated on our steering committee. 

A data-driven approach was taken to leverage the resources of 

the New Hampshire Economic and Market Information Bureau, 

which are fabulous resources the State has, to select four sectors 

to work on. The sectors that we selected were manufacturing or advanced manufacturing, depending on how you want to look at it; 

health care; technology, which we used to call IT but it’s really 

more than just IT—technology covers all the sectors, quite frankly; 

and hospitality. Each of these sectors is a vibrant contributor to 

our economy here in New Hampshire. 

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And keeping to the industry-driven concept, each sector has 

champions and intermediaries to drive the process in their sectors. 

As a matter of fact, we have some of those people right here in this 

room today. So we have a champion for our manufacturing sector 

here whose name is Val, and I think way in the back we have a 

champion from our health care sector, one of our champions, Sarah 

Courier. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Raise your hand. 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. Sarah is way in the back. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. And every one of our sectors has champions 

and intermediaries that help drive the process. Since it’s going to 

be industry driven, we need those people. We need those people 

very much. 

There’s a process called asset mapping. We went through and 

looked at each one of these industries and developed a lot of data 

points and a lot of information, and what I have here are the reports for the four sectors that we tackled, and we are about to embark on a fifth sector called infrastructure, loosely called infrastructure. Because it’s such a big thing, we don’t know exactly 

what it’s going to end up, but I’m going to tell you about that in 

a second. 

Each of the sectors has very distinct characteristics, as well as 

challenges, as you might guess, and a lot of them were even discussed earlier. In the case of manufacturing, we have 68,000 employees in the State of New Hampshire spread out over 1,950 industries. That’s an average of 35 employees each, small business 

for sure. Relatively flat growth projected here, but a lot of churn, 

a lot of movement within the population of the workforce primarily 

caused by retirements, which again I think was mentioned earlier. 

Thirty-plus percent of our people working in this sector are over 

age 55. If you talk to any companies, like I’m sure the Senator has, 

and they say they’re going to be impacted by retirements, you’ll 

hear in the next five to seven years I’m going to lose about 20 percent of my workforce. It’s a very significant number. 

The good news, strong hourly wages here, and the top needs we 

find are in CNC machinists, machinist mechanics, and first-line supervision. 

In the case of health care, 88,000 workers spread over 2,800 establishments. That’s an average of 31 people per establishment. 

Again, small business for sure. Huge growth rates here, growth 

rates 10 to 15 percent over the next five years. That’s a lot. Good 

wages at the top, not so good wages at the bottom rung of the positions there. Top needs are nurses, licensed nursing assistants, and 

medical assistants. 

Technology, which we used to call IT, every sector has technology, believe it or not. If you’ve got a computer, you’re using technology. There are 61,000 employees, roughly; growth rates approaching 12 percent over the next five years. Hourly wages are 

good here, $37 at the top end, but even the help desk people make 

a pretty good wage in this particular sector. We see the top needs 

here as being developers, systems analysts, and user support specialists. 

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Hospitality, 68,000 employees spread over 4,500 establishments, 

an average of 15 people per establishment. Seventy percent of the 

jobs are concentrated on food service and drinking establishments. 

It’s a really young workforce here, 36 percent below the age of 25, 

so they have different needs there because of that. High turnover 

caused by lower wages, and it’s seasonal, particularly up north. A 

lot of people may work three or four months a year and then they 

have to get another job for the summer or the winter. I think some 

of the top needs here are better defined career pathways. They 

exist, but they’re not recognized by potential employees. And training programs. 

I mentioned infrastructure earlier, and we’re really in the exploratory stage here, but this could be anything from an airport to a 

wastewater treatment plant, A to Z practically. So we’re doing our 

asset mapping, like we did over here, and by the end of next week 

we’ll have our first draft of the report, and we’ll probably select two 

or three sub-sectors out of this large sector. Right now if we can 

get construction, heavy-duty construction, bridge work, broadband, 

which is very important for us, and energy. 

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, a really 

high number of businesses are small, so the numbers are just—we 

validated that for sure. Helping small businesses is really a key for 

us to be successful in Sector Partnership Initiative, or SPI. 

One of the things you need to understand, as SPI we kind of act 

as an intermediary. I like to call it the connector of the dots, right? 

So there are lots of companies out there, and there are lots of resources, but sometimes they don’t know they exist. So we’re trying 

to connect those people to make sure they take advantage of what’s 

out there. 

One of the ways we do this is we have a document that’s actually 

embedded in these reports called a summary of major assets for 

this particular sector, and what’s in here, within these five or six 

pages, is identification of all the people who are convening something in this sector, something that relates to, in this case, manufacturing. It lists them all out. This is the first place where this 

has all been done, although I know that the 65 by 25 group is 

doing something very similar to this. We also identify where can 

you get training, from high schools to CT centers to two-year colleges to four-year universities to third-party independent providers 

of training. 

We also identify in here the target audiences. So one of the 

things I like to call the gene pool, we have a fixed gene pool right 

now, and we’ve got to make that pool bigger. Otherwise, we’re just 

going to keep grabbing out of the pool. All we’re doing is just recycling people. So we’re looking at targeted populations like the unemployed, underemployed, veterans, what can we do for veterans 

here, and women, of course. Technology allows women to do jobs 

that 10 or 20 years ago they couldn’t because the technology wasn’t 

here yet. It’s here today, so they can have a better opportunity for 

career growth. 

And also refugees. We’re doing a lot of work here identifying people in the country that maybe have a language issue or maybe they 

have a degree wherever they came from, but they’re driving a cab 

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or working at a low-end job. How do we unleash their potential 

there? 

And also people with disabilities are very important. We think 

this asset map is valuable, too, to unlock some of the secrets to 

that. 

We try to work with companies because we have a lot of small 

companies and they don’t all have the wherewithal to have internal 

training programs or an HR department that has a training contingent. Most small companies—Val’s company is 18 employees or 

something thereabouts, and he’s the bottle washer, dishwasher, et 

cetera. He’s the guy, right? It’s his company. So we try to bring 

groups together to work collaboratively and then find funding 

sources to help them. We do a lot of work with NAP because they 

do a lot of collaborative work just like that and it fits nicely with 

what we’re trying to do. 

And—I was going to call you Governor. Sorry about that. And, 

Senator, when you were governor, the New Hampshire Job Training Fund was formed under your watch, and believe me, we are 

using that every day of the week. We’ve done a lot of training programs in lean manufacturing, energy management, first-line supervision, auto repair, ISO 9000 compliance, and CNC boot camps, all 

through the use of the Job Training Fund. 

A key about this is it’s not a free-for-all, right? The company has 

to put some skin in the game. They’ve got to match. It’s a matching 

grant, so there has to be some investment on that side of the equation. 

In collaboration with the Community College System of New 

Hampshire and the Department of Labor Apprenticeship Office, we 

strongly support the adoption of registered apprenticeships with 

our sector partners. We see this as a proven way to attract and retain workers while companies commit to investing in their workforce. Today we have seen most activity in the health care sector, 

with training of LNAs and MAs, and the manufacturing sector with 

machining and maintenance technicians. 

We also work closely with our education providers. That’s all 

part of the food chain for us. And we’re doing a couple of projects 

right now with local high schools, the Nashua High School right up 

the street from here. We’re helping to rejuvenate their machine tool 

program. It was kind of in disrepair. We rebuilt the advisory board 

using our leverage to connections, and now we’re locating funding 

for teacher training for them so that we can get that program back 

up on its feet. 

The Creteau Technical Center in Rochester, where we are helping to develop an in-school training program in composites. If you 

know where the Creteau School is, it’s 100 yards down the road 

from Great Bay Community College’s composites laboratory. So 

we’re trying to work with them to develop a way to get high school 

students, using Running Start and other programs like that, college credits so that they can get a job right down the street shortly 

thereafter. 

So we’re leveraging all those resources, because there’s a $5 million laboratory there. It was paid for by a TAC grant. We’re 

leveraging that in this particular way. 

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We already mentioned the 65 by 25. That’s really the true measure of success for a lot of our work here, developing trainings that 

will yield some kind of post-secondary certificate or credential. 

That’s critical. 

In closing, Senator, we really appreciate your continued support 

of New Hampshire’s economy and well-being, and we look forward 

to doing that over the years. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Przybyszewski follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thanks very much. Can you just tell us, if 

somebody wanted to get a hold of the reports that you showed, are 

those available online? 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. They are. They are available online at 

NewHampshireWorks.org. All of our research is online. So instead 

of doing hard copies, if you want to know something about sector, 

go to NewHampshireWorks.org. If you want some more direct information, just see me after, give me your card, and I’ll be happy to 

spend some time with you. 

Senator SHAHEEN. That’s great. 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. Thank you. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Emily. 

STATEMENT OF EMILY HALL WARREN, DIRECTOR OF 

ADMINISTRATION, BADGER BALM, GILSUM, NH 

Ms. WARREN. Thank you for this opportunity. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Can I ask you to speak into the mic? 

If you can’t hear in the back, if you’d just raise your hand, we’ll 

try and get the mic closer. 

Ms. WARREN. Can you hear? Get in closer, okay. 

Thank you for this opportunity to talk about some of our business practices. I work for the Badger Balm company. We’re located 

in Gilsum, New Hampshire. We are manufacturers of organic body 

care products. We have about 100 employees on our staff. Something that we do a little bit differently is that we’re a B corp., 

which means that we are incorporated as a benefit corp., and we 

also undergo a rigorous certification process every two years to ensure that we are living up to our commitment to honor a triple bottom line. That’s caring for the people of our company and our community, caring for the planet, and also paying attention to our profit, which is important to do everything else. 

Because of our focus on community and people, we have an embarrassment of riches. I’m honored to say that we’re an Employer 

of Choice in the region. We do almost no recruiting. Our employees 

come to us and they want to stay with us. I really think that this 

is because of our approach to business in that we want to be a force 

for good in the world, and we want to be a force for good for our 

employees. 

Because of this, we put a lot of time and energy and resources 

into treating people, our employees, as a whole person, trying to 

support their families, trying to support their personal lives, their 

work/life balance. Examples of that include a commitment to a living wage. We have a Babies at Work program where new parents 

can bring their babies in until they’re six months old or crawling, 

whichever comes first. We have a near-site child care center once 

the babies have aged out of the Babies at Work program. We have 

paid primary care leave for new moms and dads, and paid secondary caregiver leave for new moms and dads. Just in the last 

couple of weeks we’ve made a commitment to having paid FMLA 

leave for everyone else to care for their aging family or for themselves or for another family member. 

So when I talk about all the benefits we have at Badger, I think 

that people sometimes think that we’re a bunch of crazy hippies up 

in Gilsum and that normal companies can’t do this. But there’s a 

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lot of things that we do that I strongly believe other companies can 

adopt and that they can do with very little cost and that will lead 

towards happier, healthier businesses and happier, healthier employees. 

The number-one thing you can do to support families in the 

workplace is to offer a flexible workplace schedule for moms and 

dads so that they can leave if their kids are sick, or they can go 

to a baseball game. There’s no cost to that. It might be a little bit 

harder to do scheduling-wise, but it makes a huge difference in the 

lives of people. 

Every company can make a choice to run their business transparently, to talk to their employees about what they’re doing in 

their business. Every company can encourage employees to bring 

their whole selves to work and create a supportive community for 

them. 

Another example of a program that we have that is very easy to 

implement and has a very structured cost so that you can budget 

for it is we have a wellness fund. So we say to employees we know 

that you have costs to be healthy that are not covered by our 

health insurance, and we’d be happy to pay a certain amount of 

money per year towards running shoes or for a fitness center, and 

we just budget that in a line item for every employee, a limited 

cost, very predictable and very easy to do, and it makes a huge difference. People feel like they’re being cared for. 

So, I guess what I want to say is that Badger is always looking 

for new ways to care for its employees and the community, and 

when it comes to attracting and retaining employees I think the 

most important thing that businesses can do is make sure that everyone has a voice and a role and feels like they’re part of the organizational process. Val talked about employee engagement, and 

that’s exactly what I’m talking about. 

Engagement is key to building and retaining a motivated workforce, so Badger is happy to serve as a resource. We are happy to 

talk about this to anyone and everyone who will listen. So please 

come and see me afterwards if you’d like to. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Warren follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thanks very much, Emily. 

Lisa. 

And again, if you can’t hear, raise your hand. 

STATEMENT OF LISA WHITAKER, DIRECTOR OF ASSOCIATE 

SERVICES, OMNI MT. WASHINGTON RESORT, BRETTON 

WOODS, NH 

Ms. WHITAKER. Good morning. Can everybody hear me? Thank 

you. 

This past February, the Omni Mt. Washington Resort began a 

partnership with the Job Corps Center in Manchester, New Hampshire. Students and staff of the New Hampshire Job Corps were invited to the Omni Mt. Washington for a tour where they were able 

to prepare their own lunch and enjoy smoothies alongside our team 

of culinary professionals. After their enthusiastic visit, which we 

now plan to make an annual event, the New Hampshire Job Corps 

invited a representative from the Omni Mt. Washington to attend 

their job fair and tour their facility. These tours served reciprocal 

benefits, introducing the students to the many hospitality and culinary opportunities available to them at the Mt. Washington, while 

showing the Mt. Washington the Job Corps’ quality program and 

potential talent available to supplement our workforce. 

As a result, the Bretton Woods Culinary Academy came to fruition, which consists of a three-year apprenticeship in which up to 

10 participants will be accepted each year. In partnership with 

White Mountains Community College, participants will also earn a 

culinary arts associate’s degree after successfully completing the 

program. 

The students participating in this program will be residing in 

Bretton Woods while working for the resort and attending college. 

In addition, some of their classes will be hands-on while working 

for the hotel. 

We currently have three Job Corps students in our culinary program and another working in our food and beverage department. 

We have found these students to have good work ethics, great attitudes, and a desire to learn. They are engaged, and they are excelling. 

So we’re located in southern Coos County. The Omni Mt. Washington draws employees from southern Coos County, as well as 

northern Grafton and Carrol Counties. It’s a very small population 

within commuting distance, so recruitment and staffing of up to 

1,200 employees during peak periods of business is very difficult for 

us. Partnerships, like our new relationship with the New Hampshire Job Corps, is vital. 

New Hampshire is also experiencing an aging population, as has 

been mentioned earlier, due in part to our younger generation leaving for areas with more opportunities. New Hampshire Job Corps 

provides opportunities to New Hampshire youth who may not have 

otherwise had them, and helps them to turn their lives around, 

providing them with the potential to have careers while retaining 

them for the New Hampshire workforce. 

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tality industry, an industry which is crucial to the northern New 

Hampshire economy. We’re also working with educational facilities 

at the college and high school levels to hire youth and provide them 

with career opportunities in New Hampshire. 

So our new relationship with the New Hampshire Job Corps has 

been a successful supplement to our workforce, and we look forward to a continued and growing partnership with them. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Whitaker follows:] 

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Senator SHAHEEN. Thank you, Lisa. 

And thank you all very much for some very interesting and challenging thoughts about what’s happening in the workforce. 

I want to start with an issue that most of you mentioned, and 

that is that we’re losing so many of our young people. They’re leaving the State. They’re going out of State for college and other 

things, and then they’re not coming back. 

Several of you addressed ways that you’re trying to attract people here, but are there policies that we should be thinking about 

at the State level that would help make New Hampshire more attractive to younger workers? Are there things that we should be 

putting in place to try and keep people here? 

I will direct that or open it up to all of you. 

Val. 

Mr. ZANCHUK. I think there are several issues there. Certainly 

a financial issue is one of them. In-State tuition is not necessarily 

all that attractive, so many of our students get better deals from 

other states. They should be getting their best deal from New 

Hampshire. That’s a State issue probably more than a Federal 

issue, but it certainly is one of the things that makes it difficult 

for many students to stay in-State. 

The other thing I think is the lack of awareness of career and 

career opportunities. So I think, again, at the State level we need 

to be reaching out to kids all the way down to maybe middle school 

or even below to begin to introduce them to careers. If the students 

know that there are opportunities in the State, they are more likely 

to stay. If there’s an internship or an extended learning opportunity or some sort of mentorship available, then those students 

recognize that there is something here, and that can go through 

starting in middle school up through their high school years and 

then continuing into college. So they end up with a relationship 

with a business or businesses or industry in New Hampshire and 

know that there’s an opportunity here. 

A lot of these things are being addressed and approached right 

now on the State level. I don’t know if there’s a Federal opportunity there, but certainly on the State level we are trying to reach 

down lower and lower into the grades to develop career pathway 

information so that students know early on if I’m interested in this, 

then this is the path I can take, these are the things I need to 

learn to do. And if we can stimulate some interest in a career early, 

then the student has less uncertainty as they work through school 

and they begin to understand what they need to do to get to where 

they want to go. 

Senator SHAHEEN. You know, I’ve also visited some advanced 

manufacturers who have talked about not just the need to reach 

out to students but to their parents, that many parents still think 

about manufacturing in the way that it was when I grew up and 

my father was in the shoe business. The shoe factory looked very 

different in those days than advanced manufacturing looks today. 

So what we need to do is to help parents recognize the career potential in those businesses, that everybody may not need a fouryear degree in order to take some of those jobs. 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. I think the other thing that’s important is 

when parents think about the dirty, dark, and dangerous days of 

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the grandfather who lost a finger, et cetera, it’s not like that. You 

can eat off the floor in most of these companies. 

The other people who have to be educated is the guidance counselors in our school systems to understand that there are opportunities, fabulous opportunities out there that don’t mean you have 

to go away to college somewhere, maybe community college, and 

maybe a certificate program. 

We’ve got jobs begging for people that don’t require four-year degrees and that are well-paying jobs. So they’re out there. Believe 

me, they are. 

Now I sound like Donald Trump, ‘‘Believe me, they are.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

Senator SHAHEEN. Emily, you wanted to add something. 

Ms. WARREN. I do. You’re talking about students choosing to stay 

in New Hampshire for college, but then once they graduate from 

college it’s a different demographic. You’re looking at young families. When I think about young families and their needs, things 

that I think about that can be impacted on a State and Federal 

level include quality child care availability—— 

Senator SHAHEEN. Absolutely. 

Ms. WARREN [continuing]. Quality school systems for young children, and then another issue that is on the Federal level is paid 

FMLA. So parents who are caring for young children, parents who 

are caring for their aging parents, and making it affordable and 

flexible and enjoyable to stay in the workforce. 

Senator SHAHEEN. For sure. Unfortunately, I think our Federal 

tax credit for child care has increased only one time since the 

1970s, and clearly it’s not keeping pace with the cost of child care. 

As I think maybe you pointed out, Val, we also have too many 

students who, because of their student loans, can’t afford to take 

the job that maybe they want to take because they can’t pay off 

their student loans. That’s a huge role for the Federal Government 

and a place where we can partner with states. 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. I think one of the things just to add that we 

find in our analysis is that affordable housing is a big issue, particularly up north, but even in Portsmouth. If you live in Maine 

and drive across the bridge to go to work, we need to find a way 

to get more affordable housing for our people. And if you’re a millennial and you don’t have internet service, forget it, I’m not going 

to work here. They live on their phones. 

So we need to figure out, make sure broadband is all over the 

State, where it needs to be. 

Senator SHAHEEN. And then I know it’s an issue in the North 

Country. 

Ms. WARREN. Yes, very much so. And I’ve heard of other states 

as well who have, say for recent college grads, if they stay in the 

State, they would get some kind of loan reimbursement, tuition 

loan reimbursement or help with housing if they decided to stay in 

the State. 

Senator SHAHEEN. I think both of those are really creative ideas. 

The challenge has been resources, of course. So we need to think 

about how we can provide incentives for the kinds of things that 

you talked about, Emily, that don’t necessarily cost money but help 

attract people to the jobs. 

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I want to ask you, Phil, a little bit about broadband, because it 

is one of the things that I find the most frustrating in work that 

I’ve done in New Hampshire. I’ve been working on broadband since 

I was governor 20 years ago, and we still have the same pockets 

in so much of the State where you can’t get high-speed internet. 

And what does that mean? I mean, maybe all of you can address 

what that means for your effort to attract workers for your employees as they’re thinking about where they want to go. 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. I think that for a younger person—I mean, 

I’m an old dude, but I still do a lot on my phone. But they do everything on their phone. They live and breathe on the phone. I’ve had 

people tell me, quote, ‘‘I will not take a job in New Hampshire unless there’s internet coverage where I’m going to work and live.’’ 

It’s just pervasive. I mean, we have to deal with that somehow. It’s 

real, and it’s an issue. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Any other comments on that? 

[No response.] 

The other thing I would say is—I know Lisa knows this, but for 

people in the North Country, there are areas of northern New 

Hampshire that not only don’t have access to high-speed 

broadband, they don’t have access to cell coverage. And it’s something, again, that we’ve worked very hard on in my office but still 

remains a challenge. We need to think about what we can do primarily at the Federal level to provide some incentives for the private sector to get in and provide service. At some point we may 

need to think about what we did back in the 1930s with rural electrification where we have to step in and really pay for that last 

mile for broadband to get to some of our homes and communities 

in the State. 

Women in the workforce, you addressed that a little bit, Phil, in 

talking about that being a place where we could get some additional workers. 

Emily, you talked about what Badger has done to keep women 

in the workforce. How important is what you talked about in getting women to stay in the workforce after they have children? 

Ms. WARREN. I think you can’t really quantify how important it 

is. Women are over half of our workers, right? It should be this 

way. We’re still oftentimes carrying a lot of the burden for caring 

for our children, at least in the early years. With our Babies at 

Work program, for example, we found women are excited to come 

back to work. They can bring their child back to work with them. 

It encourages children’s health because of the opportunity to 

breastfeed. It encourages mom’s health because they have a community who is surrounding them, recognizing that they have just 

had a momentous change in their family. And they’re more engaged because they’re not wondering, oh my goodness, what’s happening to my little, fragile newborn while I’m not with them. So 

I think it makes a huge difference. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Val, one of the areas that it’s often been challenging to get women to participate in is the STEM jobs, engineering and some of the non-traditional roles for women. Has that been 

an issue that you’ve seen, and have you tried to address that in 

any way? 

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Mr. ZANCHUK. Well, in our business we’ve had some women 

working on the floor, on the factory floor. That’s been sort of an inand-out type of situation for us, although we do have women working for us. They’re all beyond child-bearing age and they have a 

pretty stable existence. 

In my work with the Pre-Engineering Council, we’ve had a lot of 

effort on Technology Days and Women in Engineering programs 

and whatever, and it is certainly getting better. But I think the 

last numbers I saw were something like 20 percent of engineering 

involvement is women. They make up half the population. Why 

isn’t it 50 percent women? And we have a shortage of engineers in 

certain areas, and here’s all this talent and potential not being utilized. 

But I think still, within a lot of these industries, there’s a lot of 

bias against women being there. It may not be overt, but it’s certainly in many cases very subtle and hidden, and it’s very difficult 

for women to have a career in these areas. Besides their life pressures of having children and whatever, there are a lot of people 

who I think just don’t want women in the workforce, and that’s unfortunate. It’s getting better, but it’s a difficult process to get beyond, and I think there are a lot of things that happen to discourage girls from going into STEM fields right from the beginning. 

Even their teachers and their parents saying things to them and 

influence them to get away from that—no, you don’t want to go 

there, you want to go here—so that’s what they hear. 

Luckily, what we’re finding with a lot of the pre-engineering programs, because we’re bringing them down to kindergarten now 

with State legislation, our support of pre-engineering goes K 

through 12, there is an opportunity to introduce technology to these 

young girls early on where it becomes a natural part of their operation. 

Here in Nashua, in the middle schools, all three middle schools 

have the same pre-engineering program, and it’s part of their curriculum. It’s not a special project. It’s not something they elect to 

be in. It’s part of their curriculum. The girls go through it just like 

the boys do. It’s a natural part of training. What’s happened is 

their interest in pre-engineering and STEM, it goes into the high 

school. 

Now the high school is getting overwhelmed with all of these students coming out of middle school wanting to get involved with preengineering and manufacturing. Phil and I have been over trying 

to get the manufacturing program reinstituted, but we know that 

the pre-engineering faculty is having to be increased to meet that 

demand. 

So the earlier we get them, the more natural it is to be inquisitive and mechanical and a tinkerer, then the women will not think 

it’s a strange existence and they’ll be there. We’re getting there, 

we’re getting there. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Tamer, what are you seeing among the students who come into Job Corps? Do people self-segregate? 

Mr. KOHEIL. We try not to do that, but most of them, they come 

for hospitality and culinary arts, medical. However, we currently 

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tinues to promote women in non-traditional trades. That’s what 

we’re trying to do. But most of them come to Job Corps with their 

mind set on either medical or hospitality. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Phil, you talked about one of the areas where 

there is potential for workers in New Hampshire, among our immigrant population. I know that one of the real challenges we’ve had 

this summer with the hospitality industry, as the number of visas 

have been shrunk, has been getting in some of the workers that we 

need in the industry. 

I don’t know if that’s been an issue that you’ve seen, Lisa, but 

maybe you could speak to what that has meant as you struggle to 

find people for this season. 

Ms. WHITAKER. It is. It has been difficult. We had a call with one 

of our agencies just yesterday and learned that it may be decreased 

even more with the next round. We, of course, are always recruiting for U.S. citizens to work for us, but we can’t fill all of our jobs. 

For example, right now we have about 950 people employed. We 

have about 75 job openings right now, current openings. So it’s always a chore. It’s always difficult to fill those positions, so we do 

need to supplement, bringing in J–1 visas or H2Bs. We actually 

have H2Bs coming in this Friday. 

So it is essential to us to be able to provide the service and keep 

our business running to have these workers come in, and having 

those programs cut is making it very difficult. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Phil, do you want to comment? 

Mr. PRZYBYSZEWSKI. One of the things we’ve uncovered in our 

work—it started out in health care but ended up being more than 

that—is that there are roughly 3,000 immigrants and refugees in 

the Nashua, Manchester, and Concord strip, and we found a company that is applying for a grant, and we’re supporting their application for that to unlock opportunities for them, and it really impacts all of our sectors because they have a lot of good skills, 

they’re underemployed today. They might have a language issue 

that we can fix with English as a second language classes. They 

have normally fabulous work ethic, maybe even better than our 

own people do because they’re hungry to succeed. 

So we’re trying to tap into that, to get to that gene pool thing 

again, to enlarge that pool somehow. So we’re seeking out agencies 

and organizations that work with—Easter Seals has a good program. Asyntria has a good program. That’s the connecting-the-dots 

part. We’re trying to figure out where they are, how can we help, 

and how we can connect them with the right folks and sectors. 

Senator SHAHEEN. Great. 

I know we’re about out of time, but I want to address one final 

issue before we close, because it has been such a huge challenge 

in New Hampshire, and that is the heroin and opioid crisis that we 

have faced and how that has affected the workforce, because another concern that I’ve heard as I’ve traveled around the State has 

been it’s been hard to get workers because we find so many people 

who have been using drugs or have taken opioids that have led to 

addiction and substance use disorders. 

Can I ask if that’s anything that’s come up among your workforce, or is it something that you’ve heard from people? 

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And it leads us to the second half of that, which is how do we 

continue to address this crisis in a way that helps people with substance use disorders and gets them back into the workforce to become productive citizens? 

I don’t know if anybody has addressed this. 

Mr. ZANCHUK. Well, as a 26-person operation, we’ve had some 

issues with employees having abuse problems, but I think even if 

we get past this crisis, we’re going to have a population that has 

some sort of history of abuse, and I think as employers we’re going 

to have to come to grips with the fact that many of our employees 

are going to have some sort of history that maybe in the past we 

felt we could avoid, but we’re going to have to learn how to deal 

with it. 

How do you deal with someone that’s been an alcoholic or has 

been a substance abuser, someone that spent some time in county 

jail or something like that? I mean, these people had an issue. 

They have, many times, overcome it, but they’re left with this trail. 

With the unemployment rate so low and all of us struggling for 

workers, I think we’re going to have to understand how we’re going 

to deal with this population that’s coming through. We can’t ignore 

them. 

I’m sure in the hospitality industry it’s a common issue, and how 

do you deal with it is going to be a question. It’s a change in philosophy and thought about how in the future, as employers, we’re 

going to deal with this. We have to worry about safety on the floor 

and all these other sorts of things, but we also recognize that a lot 

of people are going to be good workers, they just have had an issue 

in the past that we have to somehow understand and be sensitive 

to and not just reject them. 

Ms. WARREN. I would really echo what Val is saying. This is 

something that we’re thinking a lot about at Badger and have been 

in the last two months or so, because whether it’s someone in your 

community who has a substance abuse disorder or it’s their family 

members or their friends or they’re affected by it, we don’t know 

anyone who isn’t affected by this crisis right now. 

Thinking about businesses’ role in society and role in our community, the place that we’ve come to is to say we need to be providing 

support for our employees and helping them through the flexibility 

that we offer in the workplace, but also through education. So we’re 

working with two organizations in the State of New Hampshire. 

One is a new organization. It’s called Be An Opportunity, or BAO 

Communications, education about how you can be a recovery coach 

to people, and we’re going to be providing that training to all of our 

managers. And then also Hope for New Hampshire Recovery offers 

a workplace initiative program where I can provide a phone number to anyone in our company who comes to me and says this has 

been going on with my family, this has been going on with my 

friend, and they will do—I think they call it assertive linkage to 

a recovery center in the State. 

I agree, this is about not shutting down people’s opportunities. 

It’s about how do we manage and help people to keep those opportunities so that they can get well, versus being ostracized. We feel 

pretty passionately about that. 

Senator SHAHEEN. That’s very well said from both of you. 

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One of the things the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act 

legislation did at the Federal level was to try to look at some of 

the forms that are typical that employees fill out when they’re applying for a job, or that workers fill out when they’re applying for 

a job, and think about where there are changes that need to be 

made to that so that it doesn’t automatically disqualify you if you 

had a problem at some point in your life with substance use. 

So I do think, as you point out, this is very important for employers to think about because the happier the workforce is, the less 

concerned they are about their families, about their own personal 

situation, the more productive they’re going to be, and the better 

the workplace is going to be. So it’s something that is really important for all of us to be thinking about. 

As I said, we promised we would try and end by noon. I want 

to again thank all of you for testifying. You’ve given us a lot to 

think about and very thoughtful responses to the real challenges 

that we’re facing, and ideas for how to address those and how to 

keep New Hampshire’s economy robust and give people opportunities. 

My father always said to me that the best thing you can do for 

somebody is give them a good job, and I believe that wholeheartedly, and thinking about ways in which we can increase opportunities for people in New Hampshire is really important. 

So thank you all very much for what you’re doing on a day-today basis, and especially for being here. 

Let me just close out officially the hearing and let you know that 

the testimony today will be part of the official transcript of the 

Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. It will be shared 

in Washington. And as we think about legislation that we should 

be looking at to address some of these challenges, it will be very 

helpful as we think about that legislation. 

I also want to again point out that we have written testimony 

that can be submitted. In two weeks anybody can submit written 

testimony within a two-week period, and we will include that as 

part of the record of this hearing as well. 

Let me also just point out, since Phil brought his show-and-tell 

reports, I wanted to point out that we have a resource guide that’s 

available I think on the table outside, if you would like it, that is 

put out by the Small Business Committee, and it’s helping New 

Hampshire small businesses. It’s the resources that are available 

to small businesses in the State as you’re looking at the challenges 

that you face. 

So again, thank you all very much for being here. Thank you to 

the panelists especially for the great ideas and for the work that 

you do. 

I would now like to officially close this hearing. 

[Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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