Kevin M. Hollenbeck
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Vice President Senior Economist Director of Publications Dr. Hollenbeck’s expertise lies in the evaluation of workforce development and career & technical education programs at the local, state, and national levels. Much of his research uses administrative data sources. His recent work has focused on estimating rates of return on public training programs. Brief Bio Full CV |
Expertise
Research Focus: Workforce Development Evaluations
Dr. Hollenbeck is currently principal investigator of a national evaluation of the second and third generation of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) Initiative. This four-year project will assess the progress of regional collaborations for integrating the workforce and talent development systems in 26 areas of the country.
Dr. Hollenbeck is also currently the principal investigator of a project for the state of Washington to estimate the net impact and costs and benefits of the workforce development system in that state. By linking administrative data and using a quasi-experimental methodology, Dr. Hollenbeck will provide estimates of the private and public returns to 11 workforce programs.
Research Focus: On-the-Job Training
Dr. Hollenbeck’s 2009 evaluation of a workplace literacy program in the state of Indiana found a significant interest in college attendance by incumbent workers, higher-than-expected levels of literacy in pre-assessments, and significant morale gains and frequent productivity gains for workers and employers.
Dr. Hollenbeck surveyed all states and analyzed the amount and sources of funding being used for publicly-supported incumbent worker training. While he found considerable variation across the states, the overall amount of funding from public sources amounted to less than 1 percent of all on-the-job training investment.
Research Focus: Career & Technical Education
Dr. Hollenbeck has done a number of studies in the area of career & technical education including a series of 14 annual studies for Kalamazoo County’s technical education consortium, called Education for Employment as well as studies of school-to-work efforts and skills development.