Standing in the robotics lab at Lawson State Community College last week in the moments after officials had announced the new AlabamaWorks initiative, a fellow reporter leaned in to ask the kind of cynical question journalists murmur to each other at such events.

“So, this is all about a new website?” he asked.

Alabama’s Regional Workforce Councils and districts are one part of a larger plan to improve workforce development in the state. (file)

The answer, of course, is “absolutely not!”

AlabamaWorks is more than a slogan, a website and a branding campaign.

To dismiss it as such ignores what has been happening throughout the state for the past three years to tear down silos between the various education and worker training systems.

In fact, you can trace this back six years ago when the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama invited the state’s universities to have a seat at the table – the board of directors table.

For the first time, higher education’s place in economic development was acknowledged in a very real way. Not only were university presidents and system chancellors invited to the ribbon cuttings and the groundbreakings, but they had a role in shaping economic development in a substantive way.

When Gov. Robert Bentley created the Economic Development Alliance in 2011, he made sure universities were represented and they helped craft the Accelerate Alabama economic development plan for the state, which was adopted in 2012. The Economic Development Alliance added representation from the state’s K-12 and community college systems in May 2012.

“That set the table that brought together traditional economic developers in a way that we had never had before with the education community,” Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield, chairman of the Alliance, told me recently while reflecting on the significance of that move.

“All of a sudden sitting at the same table talking about strategy for job creation, we had each of the seven research universities across the state of Alabama represented at the table,” he said. “We had the chancellor of the Community College System at the table and we also had the superintendent of Alabama’s primary school system at the table and we were all developing strategy together that interweaves and interlaces education, skills development and training, workforce creation and, really, career opportunities.”

AlabamaWorks is meant to prepare Alabama’s workforce for those in-demand jobs as the economy diversifies. (Made in Alabama)

In 2014, Bentley established the Alabama Workforce Council, a blue-ribbon panel of business executives, educators and lawmakers led by Alabama Power Executive Vice President Zeke Smith. In April 2015, the Alabama Workforce Council delivered a 64-page report of recommendations to improve workforce development in the state.

Among those recommendations were establishing a one-stop-shop online resource for worker training and development programs and creating a statewide brand awareness campaign – two elements of last week’s announcement.

In July 2015, the Alabama Department of Commerce created a new Workforce Development Division headed by Ed Castile, the longtime leader of AIDT (formerly Alabama Industrial Development Training), the state’s award-winning job-training agency.

Workforce development functions of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (Workforce Investment Boards, Alabama Career Centers and the Incumbent Worker Training Program) were consolidated in the new Commerce Workforce Development Division. AIDT and the Alabama Workforce Council shifted under the Commerce Workforce Development Division. The state’s Regional Workforce Development Councils also moved from the Alabama Community College System (ACCS) to the Commerce Workforce Development Division.

“Workforce readiness is a key issue facing every advanced manufacturer in the U.S.,” Canfield told members of the Economic Development Association of Alabama in announcing the new division. “We want to make sure the state is properly aligned to address this need.”

The alignment has taken some time but even while that has been taking place, work within the K-12 system, community colleges, universities and within various worker training programs has been revamped and improved.

The ongoing promotion of skilled, blue-collar jobs continues and will be enhanced under AlabamaWorks.

Officials unveil and explain AlabamaWorks from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

“When you line up K-12, two-year … and all of those kinds of programs that are now in Commerce and then put it in a system – actually create the system and deliver it, we finally have reached something we’ve been dreaming about, I guess, forever,” Castile said at last week’s announcement.

Of course, the ultimate goal is creating jobs and the only way to do that is establishing a comprehensive workforce development program that companies can believe in.

“The alignment of the non-academic side of workforce development under the Department of Commerce by creating the new Workforce Development Division is really beginning to pay off and we’re getting a lot of excitement from companies and from site selectors who are really cheering us on and saying we’re doing the right things in Alabama,” Canfield told me recently.

AlabamaWorks may look like a website and a slogan, but when you know all that has happened to make it possible, it’s so much more than that.

Michael Tomberlin is editor of Alabama NewsCenter and a veteran journalist who has covered economic development and business in the state for more than 20 years. Tomberlin’s Take is a column where he takes a closer look at a business or economic development issue.