BHEF CEO Brian Fitzgerald Urges Maryland General Assembly to Pass E-nnovate Bill to Stimulate Statewide Technology-based Economic Development

Bill Would Develop Strategic Partnerships and Create New Undergraduate Pathways for the 21st Century Economy

Annapolis, MD (March 10, 2014) — Dr. Brian K. Fitzgerald, CEO of the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF), testified before the Maryland General Assembly in support of the E-nnovate bill and an additional $50 million to fund the Maryland Venture Fund. Grounded in the economic theory of comparative advantage, BHEF business and academic members develop regional talent pipelines in emerging cross-disciplinary fields including cybersecurity, data science, energy and water science, and digital technologies as part of the National Higher Education and Workforce Initiative (HEWI). Dr. Fitzgerald’s testimony highlighted BHEF’s collaborations with the University System of Maryland (USM), Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Parsons and how these efforts are addressing Maryland’s workforce challenges.  

Through BHEF’s model of strategic business engagement, USM and these BHEF member companies are building a system-wide response to the state’s cybersecurity workforce challenges. The USM cybersecurity initiative first began in 2012 when BHEF convened key partners to discuss the cybersecurity industry’s struggles to identify and develop clear career pathways that would not only attract students to this field, but also help them persist and succeed. With an emphasis on women and under-represented groups, these BHEF members have multiple HEWI-regional projects throughout the state to meet the demand for workers in this critical field.

The Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES) program at the University of Maryland, College Park, is the nation’s first and only four-year honors undergraduate program in cybersecurity. Combining classroom knowledge and skills with real-world, hands-on experience, ACES exemplifies how business and higher education are using HEWI strategies to form productive partnerships and design new undergraduate pathways that lead to meaningful careers for students. Inspired by the ACES program, the Cyber Scholars program at UMBC models interventions that have proven effective through BHEF research and engages business to assist with increasing the number of women and underrepresented groups in cybersecurity.

BHEF’s strategic business engagement model aligns five levers—c-suite leadership, philanthropy, employee engagement, core competencies, and funded research—to shift from transactional relationships to strategic partnerships between sectors to expand and build a new talent pipeline. This model enables business and higher education to build high-impact projects to increase student interest and persistence toward degree completion and to align undergraduate education with emerging workforce needs. When fully implemented, the model enables business and higher education to effectively build sustainable, high-impact regional projects that improve educational outcomes and workforce alignment in disciplines critical to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.

“The passage of the E-nnovate Bill and Maryland Venture Fund are critical to expanding the state’s competitive advantage in a range of leading-edge fields and grow the state’s economy,” said Fitzgerald. “This legislation can serve as a competitive catalyst for establishing powerful, strategic partnerships similar to those that have advanced BHEF’s National Higher Education and Workforce Initiative to more than 20 regional workforce projects in 11 states in less than two years.”