Sometimes a problem is actually a sign that something good is happening.

Pensacola has one of those problems.

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Thousands of new, high-quality jobs are headed our way, and the community must move quickly to make sure the people who live here are ready to fill them.

With Birdon America’s planned advanced shipbuilding operation at the Port of Pensacola expected to create 2,000 jobs, and ST Engineering continuing its major aviation expansion, the region is looking at roughly 3,700 jobs tied to two major industries. Birdon’s $275 million project alone is expected to include a 400,000-square-foot advanced ship manufacturing facility and jobs paying an average of $68,000 and $112,000, depending on the position.

For a city of roughly 55,000 people, that is a big number.

But instead of waiting for the jobs to arrive and then asking where the workers will come from, Mayor D.C. Reeves is leading the conversation with local, regional, and nationwide experts on how to best tackle what is ahead.

That was the focus Wednesday, when he brought more than 53 workforce, education, business, and economic development leaders together at City Hall for a Workforce Summit focused on preparing the region for the jobs coming to Pensacola.

And the impressive part wasn’t simply who was in the room, it was the fact that they were all in the room together.

“We will not solve this problem in 90 minutes,” Reeves told the group as he opened the summit. “We do not have that expectation, but I do think within this first minute or the first five minutes, the fact that we have this expert, this expertise, these organizations, academic institutions, companies, all in the same room at the same time, brings us a long, long way.”

That may be the biggest takeaway from the summit.

Pensacola isn’t waiting for someone else to solve the workforce challenge; instead, the community is bringing the people who can solve it together.

At the table were the companies creating the jobs, the schools and universities preparing the workers, workforce organizations connecting people to opportunity, and government and economic development leaders working to help make it all happen.

The educational and academic partners included University of West Florida, Pensacola State College, Northwest Florida State College, George Stone Technical College, FSU-Inspire, Northeastern University, the Escambia County School District and others.

On the business side were Birdon, ST Engineering, Offshore Inland Marine, American Magic, Blue In Technology, Global Business Solutions and Port Creek Indian Enterprises.

Workforce and economic development organizations included CareerSource Florida, CareerSource EscaRosa, FloridaWest Economic Development Alliance, Florida’s Great Northwest and Space Florida.

State and local government partners included Florida Commerce, the Florida Department of Education, Escambia County, the Town of Century and the City of Pensacola.

Also represented were the Florida Chamber Foundation, Landrum and Triumph Gulf Coast.

That’s a lot of expertise in one room. And that is exactly the point.

Reeves said Pensacola’s future prosperity now depends on building what he called a “high-velocity talent pipeline” that prepares Pensacola residents to step directly into thousands of careers.

“We have state leadership, we have major anchor programs, educational institutions, and partners now at the exact same tables,” Reeves said. “And this is an important journey for us.”

He described the moment as an “unprecedented economic crossroads” for Pensacola.

The capital investment is arriving. The state is backing it. Major industries are expanding.

Now comes the work of making sure local people are positioned to benefit.

Florida Commerce Secretary J. Alex Kelly helped put the opportunity into an even bigger perspective. Florida isn’t simply becoming a place where companies manufacture things. It is becoming a major manufacturing state.

Kelly said approximately 430,000 Floridians currently work in manufacturing, and Florida now ranks among the top 10 states in the country for manufacturing. He also pointed out that Florida has approximately 27,000 manufacturers, the third-most manufacturing companies of any state.

And many of those companies are small businesses supplying larger manufacturers.

That means Pensacola’s opportunity isn’t limited to the people who will eventually work inside Birdon’s shipbuilding facility; in fact, it is about the entire ecosystem.

“There are big opportunities, there’s incredible opportunity with Birdon, but there’s also their suppliers too,” Kelly said. “And so, thinking about this in that context, too, of we’re also talking about the supply chain, is critically important.”

I found that to be a powerful distinction point listening to the conversation yesterday that I had not heard discussed yet.

A new shipbuilding operation can create jobs directly, but it can also create opportunities for contractors, suppliers, engineers, manufacturers, technology companies and other businesses that support the industry.

And Kelly sees another opportunity in the skills themselves.

The advanced composites and manufacturing technologies being developed for maritime applications can also be used in aerospace and aviation.

For someone entering the workforce, that means a skill learned for one industry could potentially open doors in another.

Kelly said the technology is constantly changing, which means the workforce system must change with it.

“The kind of support that’s needed from a workforce community is way more iterative and requires more frequent upscaling and a more frequent relationship between education partners, workforce partners, and the companies who are ultimately creating these workforce opportunities,” Kelly said.

In other words, workforce development isn’t a one-time program.

It is an ongoing conversation, and the employers have to be part of the solution

That message was echoed by Adrienne Johnston, President and CEO of CareerSource Florida.

Johnston said a responsive workforce system must be both proactive and collaborative.

“No single organization in this room is going to be able to tackle it on their own,” she said. “And I think you already recognize that.”

Her challenge to the employers was simple: Tell the educators and workforce organizations exactly what you need.

What skills? What credentials? What training? And how quickly? “We’re going to need you at the table and need you to help us define what that looks like,” Johnston said.

That specificity matters because the jobs of tomorrow aren’t necessarily the jobs of yesterday.

The technology, certifications, and the skills needed are changing. And the training pipeline must be nimble enough to change with them.

Johnston also emphasized the importance of looking beyond the traditional workforce.

There are people who are underemployed, marginally attached to the workforce, or simply sitting on the sidelines who could become part of this talent pipeline.

The goal, she said, should be to make sure “we don’t have anybody on the sidelines” as Pensacola builds its workforce.

For Reeves, there is an important lesson behind this effort. Pensacola has experienced major economic development before, and the lesson is that announcing jobs isn’t enough.

You must build the pathway that gets local people into those jobs.

That is why the Mayor has made workforce development a priority for the next four years.

“Just in ST and Birdon alone, we have 3,500 jobs to fill in a 55,000-person city,” Reeves said before the summit. “Of course, it’s a regional issue.”

He also emphasized that the goal isn’t simply to create training programs for the sake of creating training programs.

The goal is to create fast, effective, and safe pathways into real jobs.

“We want to leave the room with actionable steps,” he said.

That means looking at how training can be accelerated safely, how funding can be combined, and how employers and educators can work together rather than operating in separate lanes.

And Florida is already investing at the state level.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently awarded Florida $40 million for shipbuilding workforce training, a resource that could become an important piece of the larger puzzle.

Birdon is part of the equation. And the City of Pensacola has already secured two of three approvals needed for a $76 million Triumph Gulf Coast grant supporting the project, while Governor DeSantis recently awarded the city another $9 million through the Florida Job Growth Grant Fund for infrastructure and capacity building related to the shipbuilding operation.

But the workforce strategy being discussed is much bigger than Birdon.

It includes ST Engineering, American Magic, the Port of Pensacola, it includes aerospace and aviation, the supply chain for both, and small businesses.

It also includes the students, veterans, career changers, and current workers who will ultimately become the people filling these jobs.

That’s why the summit felt less like a meeting about one project and more like the beginning of a regional strategy.

What’s Next?

The summit ended with a clear understanding that Wednesday wasn’t the finish line; it was the starting point.

Reeves proposed continuing the work through private-sector and academic working groups that can take the ideas discussed and turn them into actual programs, certifications, funding applications, and training opportunities.

“We can’t just talk about it. We’ve got to be implementers as well,” Reeves said.

And perhaps most importantly, he acknowledged something easy to overlook:

The city can’t do this alone.

“The city cannot do that alone,” he told the group. “The city is ill-equipped to do the things that need to happen. You guys are. And so that’s why I’m so grateful that you’re here.”

Pensacola doesn’t have a workforce problem because there aren’t opportunities.

Pensacola has a workforce challenge because there are suddenly so many opportunities that the community has to build the pipeline fast enough to meet them.

That’s a very different problem, and in my opinion, it is a good one to have.

For decades, Pensacola has talked about creating high-paying careers that allow people to stay here, build families here, and build a future here.

Now, those careers are coming. The shipbuilding industry is growing, along with aerospace and aviation, which in turn is growing the Port of Pensacola.  Investment is arriving monthly.

And the people who can help make sure Pensacola’s residents are ready for that future are sitting around the same tables, having the same conversation, and perhaps most importantly, figuring out what comes next.

That, my friends, is good news worth reading about and watching.