Knox County Partnership Workforce & Education Advisory Council

The unique partnership of the Knox County Partnership Workforce and Education Advisory Council includes Vincennes University, all 3 public K-12 schools and 1 private K-12 school collaborating with several of our top industries/businesses and largest employers.

This advisory council is focusing effort and strategy around enhancing the vocational skills and implementing education and industry partnerships through internships for high school students.

We are also sponsoring an “Opportunity Knox” manufacturing tour of opportunity event in October geared to expose students and parents to the career opportunities in manufacturing.

In addition, Knox County is part of Grow Southwest Indiana Workforce and an 8 county Regional Southwest Indiana Development Council focused on workforce development.

Excellent Utility Partners

WIN Energy REMC and Hoosier Energy are excellent economic partners who supply power to a large geography in southern Indiana.

Knox County is fortunate to be the home base of Duke Energy’s state of the art coal gasification power plant. This $3.6 billion investment known as the IGCC Power Plant in Knox County touts an internationally renowned facility which utilizes one of Knox’s and the surrounding counties’ best natural resources, coal.

Natural gas is supplied by Vectren and AT&T is the primary telecommunications provider.

Knox County has an abundant supply of water and a professionally administered utility services board through the City of Vincennes.

Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities (CEO)

CEO is a year-long course designed to utilize partnerships that provide an overview of business development and processes. The local business community partners with area schools to create project based experiences for students by providing funding, expertise, meeting space, business tours and one-on-one mentoring.

Students visit area businesses, learn from guest speakers, participate in a class business, write business plans, and start and operate their own business. Business concepts learned through the experiential CEO class are critical; the 21st century skills of

• problem solving,
• teamwork,
• selfmotivation,
• responsibility,
• higher order thinking,
• communication
• and inquiry

are at the heart of student development throughout the course.

Students in the program come from four area high schools and meet from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM Monday – Friday.