Panel Discusses How To Maximize Current And Future Opportunities For Personal and Business Development at Governor's Workforce Development Summit

The 2023 Governor’s Workforce Development Summit, which began with great enthusiasm and energy on Tuesday, aimed to “bring all the players to the table” according to Workforce Development Board Chair Michael Carty. The event, which convened employers, job seekers and government agencies, would aid attendees “help, collaborate and redefine what we say is success,” Mr. Carty said.

During the first panel - the governor’s session - discussions turned to the opportunities that are opening up in other parts of the region, and how the territory, which Mr. Bryan called “very parochial,” could participate. Panelist Dr. David Hall, president of the University of the Virgin Islands, noted that regional expansion and collaboration is already on the university’s agenda. That goal has borne fruit with a UVI campus in St. Maarten, along with memoranda of understanding “with just about every Eastern Caribbean government,” Mr. Hall made known.

Both the governor and the university president acknowledged the strategic value the Virgin Islands has to the United States in terms of developing stronger foreign relations with the other nations in the region. Even opportunities with the fellow United States territory right next door were going unclaimed, Governor Bryan emphasized. “Puerto Rico has three million people, and yet we sell them nothing,” he said. “Why aren’t we capitalizing on that project?”

The governor noted that the free trade zone established on St. Croix means that goods imported would not attract tariffs, and neither would finished goods sent to the mainland – a potential boon for regional manufacturers who currently face significant challenges establishing a foothold in the U.S. market due to the tariffs and taxes on foreign-made goods. “These are simple things that we’re not leveraging,” Mr. Bryan stated.