Iowa Central Community College partnered with Mary Ann’s Specialty Foods utilizing 260F funding to deliver a Spanish-English Leadership Series, a program designed to upskill employees and support workforce cohesion across production teams.

“At Mary Ann’s Specialty Foods, success isn’t just about quality products–it’s about empowering people,” said Anna Woodward, Assistant Director of Economic Development for Iowa Central Community College.

“In a multi-generational meatpacking plant, language barriers once stood in the way of efficiency, safety, and advancement,” she said.

Iowa Central Community College helped turn that challenge into an opportunity.

The 260F Jobs Training Program is an Iowa Workforce Development program, administered by Iowa’s 15 community colleges, that allows Iowa employers to share the cost to upskill their workforce with customized training. It’s a smart way to upskill, retrain, retool, or incentivize new jobs–without bearing the full cost.

Instead of separate sessions for English and Spanish speakers, the training used a dynamic bilingual format, alternating between languages so everyone learned together. Topics included Effective Communication, Managing Change, Emotional Intelligence, and Productivity Strategies. Over the course of a year, 40 employees participated in quarterly two-day sessions.

“The grants have been tremendous to really kickstart programming that invests in our team,” explained Pam Netzel, Vice President, Mary Ann’s Specialty Foods.

“One of our core values is personal development. We value growing our leaders from within. Every quarter our team members have a personal development goal.”

The impact was clear: stronger leadership, better communication, and a more cohesive workforce. By intentionally building company culture and creating alignment, Mary Ann’s reported nearly zero turnover in Supervisor roles and record-breaking productivity numbers since the program launched in 2024.

Increased productivity was a direct result of better communication, synergy, and overall organization.

“It was invaluable to me having Iowa Central as a partner. They found the instructor for us and they sent me the paperwork that I needed to fill out, answering all my questions so I could get it completed correctly in a timely manner, which allowed me as an Human Resources manager to focus on my employees and company, while being able to provide a wonderful development opportunity for them.” explained Kristin Stanley, HR Manager, Mary Ann’s Specialty Foods.

Employees described the training as “eye-opening,” while upper management praised its ability to build confidence and trust. “The team brought real-life situations to the discussion and had the opportunity to talk to someone outside of the organization,” explained Netzel.

This initiative was supported in part by Iowa’s 260F Jobs Training Program, which helps businesses invest in their people by leveraging state with a forgivable loan.