RMCEP News

Northwest Region Blog

The presence of such industry powerhouses as Polaris, Arctic Cat and New Flyer make Northwest Minnesota a hub of transportation equipment manufacturing.

From wheat and potatoes to soybeans and sugar beets, the region is a major producer and processor of food staples and specialty agricultural products. Click here to view the blog.

Ticket to Work

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

For 20 years, the Ticket to Work program has helped individuals with disabilities find meaningful jobs. On December 16, 1999, then-president Bill Clinton signed the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act into law, giving social security disability beneficiaries ages 18-64 free employment services through an Employment Network (EN) or their state Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) agency. Rural Minnesota CEP (RMCEP) is an affiliate EN under the American Dream Employment Network, serving 19 counties in Minnesota and is committed to offering the free Ticket to Work program to both SSI and SSDI beneficiaries. As such, the RMCEP has eight certified Wor...

New Americans and the Labor Force

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Throughout its history, Leading CareerForce partner Rural Minnesota Concentrated Employment Program (RMCEP) has assisted thousands of individuals from a wide range of backgrounds acquire the skills and training necessary to thrive in the regional economy and elsewhere. While training and employment service is RMCEP’s primary mission, their clients often have barriers to joining the regional labor force that must also be addressed in the process. Such workforce barriers as childcare availability, language differences, or a lack of transportation are frustrating realities for many jobseekers. In particular, new Americans often face multiple barriers and a steep learning curve when transitioning to lif...

Wadena career center breaks through barriers to employment

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

"Just get a job," is a retort all too familiar to Darla Hoemberg. It's a sentence she's even thought about using when she first started working for Rural Minnesota CEP from her former career in human resources. She saw many people receiving assistance, that seemed capable of working, but weren't. But she soon realized that, for some, getting a job has many obstacles. Working through those obstacles has helped the Wadena site become an envy of other locations within the Rural Minnesota CEP (Concentrated Employment Program, Inc.). That's what Wadena County Commissioners heard during a recent report from Hoemberg, team leade...

Meet Vicki Leaderbrand, Rural Minnesota CEP’s New Executive Director

Monday, September 23, 2019

Rural Minnesota Concentrated Employment Program (RMCEP) welcomed Vicki Leaderbrand as its new Executive Director after Dan Wenner, who had led the organization for 14 years, retired in June of this year. And while she might be new to the role, Leaderbrand isn’t new to the organization at all. With 28 years of experience working in the employee and training industry, she has spent the last 14 at RMCEP, first as a planning/human resources specialist and then as director of operations and human resources. Her experience in the industry has fueled her passion for her work, and she is excited to step int...

Executive Director Dan Wenner Retires After 32 Years

Friday, June 14, 2019

Dan Wenner has spent more than three decades working for the Rural Minnesota Concentrated Employment Program (RMCEP). But before that, the retiring executive director was a client. Wenner turned to RMCEP when he needed some assistance to find work. This experience of getting help when he really needed it — and the way services were delivered — made an impression on him. “I gained a high regard for the organization because of the way staff treated people — with respect,” Wenner says. When a job opportunity later opened up at RMCEP, he decided to pursue it. Wenner started his 32-year career at RMCE...

Somewhere Between Site Selection and Storytelling: An Expert Webinar

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Economic development organizations face hard choices. To encourage investment and job growth, they must make certain decisions. They cannot be all things to all people. To a large degree, an EDO must bet on certain aspects of a community to be effective. Site selection is a changing landscape, staying on top of the current trends and features is important for your local economic development. Knowing how to tell the story to match the changing trends is even more important. in this webinar, Aaron Brossoit, CEO of Golden Shovel, explained about the changes in site selection and how an EDO can stay o...