Interest in Sector Work: Our sector initiative, the Southern North Carolina Allied Health Regional Skills Partnership, began in October 2007 under the leadership of Southern Regional Area Health Education (AHEC). AHECs exist to improve the quality and distribution of the healthcare workforce, so the spirit of sector work seemed like a good fit and a natural alignment with AHEC's mission. We started with a 15- month grant-funded planning period to research in our industry (Allied Health) and form our partnership of employers, schools, workforce and economic development agencies, and other stakeholders in the region. Following our planning we entered into a 2-year implementation of a sector plan.The main issue that our partnership addresses is filling the staggering shortages in skilled Allied Health professions in our large, mostly rural region of southeastern North Carolina. Our state has seen record numbers of layoffs in the manufacturing and textile industries over the past few years and our partnership strives to help unemployed/incumbent workers in our region to prepare for and find work in the stable and growing healthcare industry. Our major accomplishments to date include the establishment of new career models for Allied Health professions, as well as the creation of a new Doctor of Physical Therapy degree program in our region and consortia agreements between community colleges to share the existing Physical Therapy Assistant degree program. Over the coming year, we anticipate shifting our work to researching new disciplines/professions and selecting one or more to target for intervention. Early discussions indicate a strong need among employers for medical coders with skills in inpatient coding. Our current training programs in the region do not meet those needs.