TIFWorks Helps DMC Engineers Cultivate Technical and Soft Skills

Earlier this year DMC was awarded funding from the City of Chicago’s TIFWorks Program. TIFWorks is a government program that “stimulates business success by funding workforce-training costs for companies located in tax increment financing (TIF) districts.” The program awards grants to small companies in the City of Chicago for training purposes and is one of the few city funded initiatives to support the training of incumbent employees. Due to the outstanding level of support DMC has received from TIFWorks and other initiatives, our productivity has greatly increased, and we have gained numerous new clients since becoming involved in the TIFWorks Program.

Chicago’s TIFWorks Program first landed on DMC’s radar when Lori Bush, Director of Economic Development at World Business Chicago introduced Frank Riordan, DMC’s President, to her contacts at the City of Chicago. I began the TIFWorks application process in the fall of 2012 during which time Rosie Jimenez and Souad Timatyos of the Department of Planning and Development provided indispensable assistance and advice. “Our TIF team of Rosie and Sue were incredibly supportive,” says Frank. “They were truly integral to our success!”

The support of the TIFWorks Program allowed DMC to recruit and train 11 new hires (all of whom reside within the City of Chicago), as well as formulate four core training courses intended to grow the technical and soft skills of our current employees.

• LabVIEW Basic
• Automation Basics
• Microsoft Consultant Application Developer Training
• Sales Training
• New Employee Training

Since kicking off work with the TIFWorks program in February 2013, DMC has experienced growth in the following ways:

• Recruited and trained 11 new employees (all of whom reside within the City of Chicago)
• Provided over 3,600 hours of classroom and on-the-job training for over 40 DMC employees (most of whom reside within the city limits of Chicago)
• Experienced a revenue growth of 26%
• Expanded our Chicago office space by 26%
• 13 DMC employees have become certified in a variety of technologies, including Microsoft, National Instruments LabVIEW, and Siemens

“What a fantastic homegrown Chicago success story!” says Lori Bush. “DMC is a perfect blend of our city’s strengths in technology and advanced manufacturing, and a great investment of the city’s training dollars in Chicago’s greatest resource: our human capital.”

DMC is extremely fortunate to have such fantastic external advocates as well as supporting programs (like TIFWorks) which allow us to continually develop our own greatest resource: our employees. We are excited to further lay the groundwork for our future successes and to build upon how far we’ve come as a company and a community.

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