Wayne Vardaman, Davis Henry and Aubrey Carter have been appointed by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to serve on the Central Alabama Works! Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Board of Directors.

The board is all volunteer, and its members are dedicated to helping with workforce development across the state.

“One of the obvious needs in the Black Belt is workforce development, so any time you can be involved and help develop some programs to affect that and have a better workforce in the area is something that we’re all interested in,” Henry said.

Henry is one of the owners of Henry Brick Company in Selma and is also on the Selma and Dallas County Economic Development Authority.

“Me being an employer and being involved with the EDA and knowing some of the challenges some other manufacturers have, one of our greatest needs is a ready workforce,” Henry said. “A workforce that has the skills and tools that they need to be successful. We struggle with that and have struggled with it for years.”

The goal of the board is to better serve the workforce needs of business and industry and economic development at the local level.

“This is an opportunity to maybe try to help realize some change and solve some issues that we have and make the workforce that we have here ready to go to work and help the local businesses,” Henry said. “I’m going to enjoy the challenge.”

Henry said anything he can do to help Selma is something he wants to be part of.

“I plan on being in Selma the rest of my life, and I want to see Selma be a great place, so this is just something else that I can do to try to give back,” he said. “Hopefully, I will bring something to the board that will help, and we can find ways to continue to make Selma better.”

Vardaman said the board will deal with federal money that comes in to the state to be allocated out by regions and then to counties for workforce development.

“It’s important because it deals directly with my job,” Vardaman said. “It gives me more of a position to help solve the problem.”

Vardaman serves on the EDA and also plays a major role on the Regional Workforce Council, where he continues his work with workforce development.

“It’s cool to be in a position to be able to help somebody have an opportunity that otherwise may not,” Vardaman said.

“I was excited to be appointed. It’s good for the community that we have local people serving on the board. It’s important to us so we can offer jobs to people, so that we keep our children here.”