Organizers of the third and final day of the 2025 Governor’s Workforce Summit invited the audience to consider building resilience and exploring opportunities in the environment. Some attendees who sat in on St. Croix and St. Thomas sessions earlier in the week also joined the Friday session at the Cleone Creque Legislative Conference Room on St. John.
The theme of this year’s series was training, technology, and transformation, said moderator Sana Joseph Smith at day’s end. Smith serves as a special adviser on education and workforce development.
“ … the reason why we selected that theme is because we are acknowledging that technology is in a state right now where it is completely transforming the way that we do business, the way that we train, the way that we are empowering people to really take part in the workforce,” Joseph Smith said.
One of the day’s panels took a look at how technology affects the lives of home-based remote workers — a sector that gained prominence during the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic.
Lt. Gov. Tregenza Roach listened attentively to all of the day’s panel discussions. Later on Friday, he reflected on the value of promoting further dialogue. “I think when you gather all of these perspectives together, there’s an opportunity to identify ways to improve,” he said.
Roach also spoke about the role workforce development is playing in the ongoing recovery from the 2017 hurricanes Irma and Maria. Eight years have passed since the storms brought widespread destruction to the Virgin Islands.
The government at that time saw workforce development as a way to maximize employment and keep federal recovery funds circulating locally.
Was that effort as successful as was once hoped? The lieutenant governor said unresolved matters remain a hindrance. “Things like maximizing our contractors’ ability to participate when they have these issues with bonding, and how do we look towards improving the climate so that they can participate more,” Roach said.
Since 1998, the territory has pursued initiatives designed to build the kind of capability that adapts to changes in the economy both locally and globally. Joseph Smith said the evolution of V.I. workforce development has produced world-class workers and entrepreneurs. “We have the ability to compete at a quality and a service level that is on par and even better than some of our counterparts across the globe,” she said.
“What we wanted folks to be able to get from this summit and this theme is for them to acknowledge the fact that if they embrace and take advantage of the training that’s available, they cannot only upskill themselves, but they can upskill their team members, their staff, and literally transform the organizations that they participate in,” she said.
