Utah has received a second financial boost for a program designed to pump new talent into the state's biotechnology and biomanufacturing industries.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently awarded a $5 million grant under its Workplace Innovation in Regional Economic Development Initiative, or WIRED, to the Governor's Office of Economic Development. GOED has been working with the state Department of Workforce Services and several others for a year developing the program.

The Labor Department earlier had awarded $3.2 million to the Salt Lake Community College and the College of Eastern Utah for life sciences training.

"It's about the pipeline of talent to meet the growing needs of our (life sciences) cluster of businesses in this area," Pat Vaughn, director of GOED's talent access program, said during a recent meeting of the GOED board.

"The core concept is to build education and training in the math and sciences basically from cradle to grave. It engages our high schools, giving our high school students intensive, hands-on, real-world experiences. It funnels them into community colleges, and those who elect to move on to four-year and advanced degrees have the ability to do that. This is really about building a real pipeline of talent in this area."

In a prepared statement, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said the $5 million grant was "a wonderful acknowledgement for Utah."

"This national recognition of Utah's innovative ability to identify and fill the need for talent in our growing biotechnology industry is a great opportunity," he said. "The development of highly skilled, well-compensated professionals is integral to the success of our state."

Vaughn and others commended the cooperation needed to make the program work.

"The key essentials to this is where you really begin to bring key stakeholders and essential partners together from government, from industry, from professional organizations, from academia, from education, from the entrepreneurial and investment community, and they all must be at the table. And this $5 million will be used to fuel that," she said.

"I'm very pleased that our collaboration with our partners has paid off to the benefit of the work force of the future," Tani Pack Downing, executive director of the Department of Workforce Services, said in a prepared statement. "This validates the need for state government and the education community to continue to work together with the private sector to insure Utah's work force remains competitive in a global economy."

Vaughn cautioned that the program is in relative infancy. "All the stars are aligning for us," she said. "This is indeed viewed as a beginning. This is not an end result."

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