| James H. Hayes
James H. Hayes manages a Workforce Development Department that spans two organizations, the Pittsburgh Technology Council, a 1,700 member business association of technology companies and support members, and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center (SPIRC), a private, nonprofit regional organization that provides technical consulting services and assistance to small and medium-sized manufacturing companies in southwestern Pennsylvania. The Workforce Development Department educates and recruits people for manufacturing and technology careers and companies, and consults with companies about training and organizational development. Prior to joining SPIRC in 1993, Mr. Hayes worked as a free-lance writer and consultant for Pittsburgh manufacturers – Alcoa, Fisher Scientific, PPG Industries, and Westinghouse – advising senior executives and management teams how to communicate information and ideas in ways that improve organizational performance. He has written texts on problem solving, benchmarking, statistical process control, decision making, and strategic planning, and produced and taught numerous corporate training programs. He also served as a consultant to small manufacturing and technology companies in the areas of organizational and workforce development. Before coming to Pittsburgh, Mr. Hayes taught Humanities at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a state-supported, four-year, liberal-arts college. He has a Bachelors Degree in Education and a Masters Degree in English from Kent State University. He is certified by the Society for Human Resource Management as a Senior Professional in Human Resources. He and his wife, Anne, live in Stanton Heights, Pittsburgh. They have two grown children.
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The Southwestern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center (SPIRC) is a 30 person, private, nonprofit economic development organization that provides technical consulting services and assistance to small and medium-sized manufacturing companies in southwestern Pennsylvania. SPIRC’s mission is to improve the performance of these companies and to strengthen the region’s capabilities to support manufacturing growth. It is an affiliated organization of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, but it is governed by an independent board of directors, drawn primarily from the manufacturing sector. SPIRC was founded in 1988 as part of the Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center Network consisting of seven private, nonprofit economic development organizations and currently receives funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 1994, SPIRC became part of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) System, a nationwide network of more than 70 locally managed extension centers established under the auspices of the National Institute of Standards and Technology within the U.S. Department of Commerce. SPIRC’s manufacturing engineers, business specialists, and human resource consultants work with manufacturing companies to:
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