Grant program helps fund rural IT apprenticeships

Jonathon Evans graduated in May with a computer science degree and a desire to stay in his hometown, Abingdon. Fortunately for him, information technology company Wize Solutions LLC was seeking apprentices through a targeted state program that alleviates the cost of hiring and training employees new to the technology field.

“In order to get a job that I was looking for, I would have had to move either to a nonrural area or out of state, so the apprenticeship allowed me to stay in my area and get a high-skilled IT job,” Evans says.

Administered by the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, the Virginia Rural Information Technology Grant Program aims to create post- and potentially pre-college technology jobs in rural areas, with the goal of fostering technological economic development. Applications opened July 6 and companies can apply as long as funds remain available.

Through the program, which received $1 million in state funding in July after its funding was cut last year due to the pandemic, Wize Solutions receives grants for half the salary, benefits and training costs, capped at $60,000 a year, for each of the two paid, full-time apprentices participating in Wize’s 18-month apprenticeship program.

“It’s a good deal for us,” says Wize Solutions Vice President of Operations Mark Eschle. “It’s a good deal for the clients that we’re serving, and it’s a great deal for the region, because it allows us to create jobs for people that otherwise would have to leave the area.”

IT companies with fewer than 100 employees across five Southwest Virginia cities and 17 counties, ranging from Lee to Botetourt, are eligible to apply for the program after registering as apprenticeship sponsors with the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, like Wize Solutions did, or the federal government.

“We want to grow you, and we want to grow people,” says Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center Executive Director David Matlock. “And in the process, we will grow rural Virginia.”

Wize Solutions’ two apprentices graduated from college in May. Along with gaining experience working on a client project, Evans is pursuing a certification from Blue Prism, a software company specializing in programming tools for automating repetitive manual tasks such as entering numbers into a spreadsheet.

Wize Solutions plans to hire Evans and its other apprentice as full-time employees when their apprenticeships conclude at the end of 2022.