Specialized Job Assistance Sites

2005: Hurricane Katrina

In August 2005, Louisiana’s then-current Louisiana Works Virtual OneStop (LAVOS) system was tested on its ability to respond to real-world conditions when Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of southeast Louisiana. The storm displaced thousands of Louisiana residents who, in the aftermath of the storm, were in desperate need of employment. The storm destroyed businesses and the area’s economic infrastructure, resulting in an estimated 150,000 jobs lost. Local workforce boards met the challenge to provide immediate assistance and assist the area’s unemployed to find employment, access assistance, and rebuild their lives.

The state used Virtual OneStop to help accomplish this task by creating specific vacancies for victims of the hurricane, and using the system’s content management system to update the site’s homepage continually with information on hurricane relief and recovery services.

As expected, usage of the system skyrocketed, exceeding 70,000 unique visitors per day. Meeting the increased system load was possible due to the scalability of the system’s architecture and a robust hosting environment. Louisiana was able to provide full online services to users despite the challenging conditions.

2010: Deepwater Horizon

The Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill marked the largest marine oil spill in history. The Virtual OneStop systems in Florida and Louisiana were closely involved in filling jobs for the cleanup of the subsequent damage. Federal reporting requirements also called for tracking the individuals who applied for and took those jobs. To accomplish this, Geographic Solutions created the Gulf Recovery Jobs portal, which was connected to Florida’s Virtual OneStop system, known as Employ Florida. The portal helped place job seekers who were looking for jobs associated with, or as a result of, the oil spill.

On the back end, the system provided workforce staff with a convenient, centralized access point for all oil spill policy and procedure documents through the Staff Online Resources page, which was maintained through the content management system.

The system was responsible for allowing Florida, and surrounding states, to pivot in response to the unfortunate disaster.

2016: Louisiana Flooding

Prolonged rainfall in southern parts of Louisiana resulted in catastrophic flooding that submerged thousands of houses and businesses, affecting 20 Louisiana parishes. The state’s Virtual OneStop system, known as Helping Individuals Reach Employment (HiRE), was immediately configured to accept disaster unemployment assistance claims. A significant number of Louisiana Workforce Commission staff were displaced and unable to work. The system was able to continue to take claims uninterrupted and was also made available for neighboring Texas Workforce Commission staff to assist in accepting claims on behalf of the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

2016: Smokey Mountain Wildfires

One of the largest natural disasters in the history of the State of Tennessee, the wildfires in Gatlinburg forced over 14,000 residents and tourists to evacuate. The state’s Virtual OneStop system, known as JOBS4TN, was used to find jobs for individuals whose workplaces were among the 2,000 buildings that had been damaged or destroyed. The JOBS4TN system was immediately configured to receive and process disaster unemployment assistance claims.

2017: Hurricanes Irma & Maria

In 2017, Hurricane Irma made landfall on the State of Florida, racking up between $60 to $100 billion in damages stemming from business disruption, prolonged unemployment periods, transportation and infrastructure damages, crop loss, fuel prices, and property damage. To complement the state’s organized recovery effort, Geographic Solutions collaborated with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity to launch the Disaster Recovery Jobs Portal.

This site played a significant role in the state’s reemployment effort after many businesses were temporarily, and in some cases, permanently closed. In the weeks following the storm, the site’s traffic spiked with an influx of hundreds of thousands of job seekers actively looking for work. A large number of employers also utilized the site to create hundreds of new job listings, many of which revolved around relief aid.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Florida led the nation in net private-sector job losses in the third quarter of 2017, a decline of about 134,000 jobs. As a testament to the Disaster Recovery Jobs Portal’s influential role in the state’s economic recovery, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics job reports show that Florida had a net gain of 214,372 private-sector jobs in late 2017 – an uptick in the state’s ranking from worst to first nationwide in job creation. Aside from job creation and placement, job seekers also utilized the site to create résumés, apply for Disaster Unemployment Assistance, and find education and training opportunities

The portal’s success as an important recovery resource influenced Geographic Solutions to create a similar portal for residents of the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico following the impact of Hurricane Maria later that month.

2020 - Present: COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic caused governments across the nation to launch unprecedented public health and economic responses, including large-scale quarantines, travel restrictions, and social distancing measures. In response to this, Geographic Solutions closely monitored the situation to provide a focused response. When Congress passed and signed into action the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Geographic Solutions quickly incorporated Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claim functionality into the existing unemployment insurance client sites and deployed standalone PUA portals for new clients who were in need of assistance.

Paul Toomey7

Founder & President

Paul Toomey has over 30 years of experience in geographic information systems, programming, analysis, management for state and local governments in the U.S. and overseas. In 1992, Paul founded Geographic Solutions and has served as the company’s president since inception. Paul earned a M.S. in Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Systems from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London. He also earned a B.S. in Geography from the University of London, England. Paul holds multiple patents for software inventions in the workforce development field.

Paul Toomey8

Founder & President

Paul Toomey has over 30 years of experience in geographic information systems, programming, analysis, management for state and local governments in the U.S. and overseas. In 1992, Paul founded Geographic Solutions and has served as the company’s president since inception. Paul earned a M.S. in Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Systems from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London. He also earned a B.S. in Geography from the University of London, England. Paul holds multiple patents for software inventions in the workforce development field.