On Monday September 24 the Workforce Development Division hosted the first ever Workforce Industry Building Learning Series kickoff event.  The purpose of this series is to build the Workforce Development Division business services brand with the Northern Virginia business community.  More than ninety executives representing the Northern Virginia business community came to Annandale’s Ernst Center for this informative Cyber Security event. The keynote speaker was Dr. Ronald Ross, who is considered one of the top 50 Information Technology Decision makers in government.  He discussed detailed steps businesses can take to integrate cyber security requirements into main stream organizational mission and business processes.   Based on a feedback survey 100% of the attendees found the event “informative and interesting.”

                The demand for events like this is very strong as 94% of attendees said they would attend future NOVA learning series events. Several attendees expressed appreciation to Workforce Development Division staff for producing this event and would like to work with the Workforce Development Division in developing training programs for their businesses.   As a result of this strong response and demand the Workforce Development Division plans to host future Workforce Industry Building Learning events around topics of critical interest to our business customers.