The NC Chamber Foundation, in partnership with the NC Community College System (NCCCS), has been selected by the Burning Glass Institute (BGI) as one of two regional partners for the 2026 Skills First Regional Implementation Pilot — a nationally competitive initiative focused on advancing skills-first workforce practices from concept to real-world application.  

The NC Chamber Foundation will lead the North Carolina pilot in partnership with NCCCS, Forsyth Technical Community College, and the NC Biotechnology Center (NCBiotech). 

BGI’s Skills-First Workforce Initiative is one of the most significant national efforts to better align employer-defined job requirements with education and training systems. To date, the initiative has convened major employers to develop shared skills taxonomies for more than 30 high-impact roles, representing more than a quarter of the entire U.S. private sector workforce. This next phase focuses on embedding those standards into the tools, systems, and regional partnerships that shape hiring and training decisions. 

The NC Chamber Foundation was selected through a competitive national process. The 2026 cohort — launched in March in Washington, D.C.— includes the Business Roundtable, NPower, the National League of Cities with the American Institutes for Research, and The Manufacturing Institute with SmartResume. 

The North Carolina pilot will operate in two regions: the Triad, partnering with Forsyth Technical Community College, and the Triangle, partnering with the NCBiotech. In each region, employers and educators will work together to define job requirements and evaluate how well local training programs align with those needs. Both partners bring strong employer networks and deep regional credibility in two of the state’s most critical talent markets. 

“For the past 11 years, North Carolina employers have stated that the quantity and quality of talent supply is a primary growth constraint,” said Vincent Ginski, senior director of workforce competitiveness for the NC Chamber Foundation. “This partnership creates an opportunity to build a more rigorous, repeatable approach to understanding skill requirements — and to give employers and educators a stronger foundation to work from.” 

“What makes North Carolina compelling is that the NC Chamber Foundation and NC Community College System aren’t just well-connected — they’re aligned on where this needs to go,” said Erik Leiden, Managing Director of Workforce Strategy at the Burning Glass Institute. “North Carolina came to us with a clear vision for how this could work at the regional level and the relationships to execute on it. That kind of strategic clarity, backed by statewide infrastructure, is exactly what implementation at scale requires.” 

The findings from this pilot will inform how North Carolina evaluates training programs and connects employer needs to education outcomes. The NC Chamber Foundation and its partners will document the process and its results as part of a broader effort to determine whether this approach can scale statewide.