Event stresses need to keep graduates in region

The Philadelphia region needs a clear identity as an innovation hub - marked by its being a leader in a particular sector - if it is to keep more of its college graduates from leaving for New York City or the West Coast.

That was one theme at Tuesday's Regional Congress on Talent and Education at St. Joseph's University, an event organized by the the Main Line Chamber of Commerce to strengthen ties between institutions of higher education and employers.

"We need to think about what we're good at [and then] build an ecosystem around that," said Jonathan Brassington, chief executive of LiquidHub Inc., an information-technology services company in Wayne.

Brassington, who said his vote for the region's specialty would go to health care, would like to avoid an experience he had recently mentoring two teams of student entrepreneurs at the University of Pennsylvania.

One group, with a media start-up, moved to New York. The other, involved in online consumer marketing, moved to the West Coast.

Speakers at the invitation-only meeting attended by 200 business and higher-education leaders also emphasized the importance of paid internships, the rising bar of required educational levels, and the broad need for business and higher education to collaborate to boost the region's economy.

F. William McNabb, president and CEO of the Vanguard Group, gave the keynote address on how the Malvern mutual-fund company benefits from area colleges and universities.

Another high-profile participant was Drexel University president John Fry, who explained how Drexel is integrating itself further into the community through partnerships with community colleges.

The solution is not as simple as turning higher-education institutions, which are increasingly under pressure to justify the huge cost of a degree, into job-training centers. College leaders pointed out the inherent tension between producing graduates with specific skills for entry-level jobs and preparing students for enriched lives and long careers.

CEOs are making two very different demands on educators, one university president said. They want graduates with both concrete technical skills and softer communication skills.

"I think things are a little schizophrenic right now," said La Salle University president Brother Michael McGuinness.

Deborah Diamond, president and chief executive of CampusPhilly, a nonprofit working to increase the number of nonnative graduates of area colleges who stay in the region after graduation, said many students want to stay, but "there's friction."

Those in the current generation of college students are not just thinking about their first job, Diamond said. They are thinking about their second and third jobs. "They need to know there's a large cohort of companies" available to them, she said.

For Brassington, whose company employs 1,500, including 750 in the Philadelphia region, there is a certain urgency to attracting talent to LiquidHub.

"We have hired locally 250 IT professionals so far this year. We have 200 openings today, local openings," Brassington said.

"We as a company need a much tighter collaboration with the educational system within the region as well as with other organizations to help us fulfill this need," he said.