Many local firms have summer internship programs to assist their organizations with seasonal workers. Others use these programs as a recruiting tool to "try out" potential employees.

It has long been known that internships lead to full-time jobs. In fact, some experts say that 50 % of interns get full-time offers. After many efforts to reach out to the local business community, we are beginning to identify some success stories. Novozymes Biologicals informed us that they hired two interns from the summer class of 2006 - one from Roanoke College and one from Virginia Tech.

Sure, it is only two, but multiply this by 100 firms doing this each year and over time you will see a lot more young professionals in the region. These will provide a critical mass and street cred among young adults at local colleges who may be seeking professional opps locally.

We must get more local firms to establish intern programs and make them offers upon graduation and therefore creating a pipeline for recruiting local talent. The local business community must tap into this unique resource of over 60,000 college students in the region by hiring them after graduation. This is an important piece to the labor shortage caused by retiring Baby Boomers over the next few years.

It starts with college summer interns.