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Tag: Virginia Highlands Community College

SW community colleges to create wind manufacturing workforce

The presidents of four community colleges in Southwest Virginia signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday to establish a wind manufacturing workforce development partnership.

“Today’s MOU signing is meaningful because it demonstrates our resident and abiding interest in collaborating. Our four community college presidents are setting an example of how to find ways to work together over significant opportunities that can empower the region as a whole,” said Will Payne, managing partner of Coalfield Strategies LLC and project lead for InvestSWVA.

Mountain Empire Community College, Southwest Virginia Community College, Virginia Highlands Community College and Wytheville Community College “will work together to promote, develop and expand the training and development of a workforce prepared to enter” the supply chain manufacturing workforce in the offshore wind energy field, the MOU states.

“We are realistic about the number of people ready to go to work in manufacturing,” Wytheville Community College President Dean Sprinkle said in a statement. “As a result, we see the wind energy sector as an exciting and compelling path for people who may be ‘on the fence’ about a manufacturing career. Training workers and inspiring them to live and work in our region are elements of our mission in community colleges, and this is an enticing opportunity.”

InvestSWVA commissioned Aberdeen, Scotland-based energy consulting firm Xodus Group Ltd. to perform research for Project Veer, its initiative to help Southwest Virginia manufacturers find entry points in the supply chain for wind energy equipment components announced in December 2021. The firm recommended that regional community colleges sign an MOU formalizing their collaboration, and that the project’s members identify a “major tier company” to act as an anchor and help pave the way to form relationships with global equipment manufacturers

With the MOU signed, the next step in the process is for the colleges to form a leadership team with a senior official and at least one other representative from each college. The stakeholders will work closely with the commerce and trade secretariat, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Virginia Department of Energy and legislators to identify the “major tier company.”

“We accelerated the pace of this first phase of Project Veer from six months to three, so that we could spend the next three months building a timeline around the MOU, a potential partnership with the Hampton Roads Alliance and figuring out how we coordinate centrally to seize this opportunity,” Payne said.

The other chief recommendations of Xodus Group’s report are for the project’s members to form such a partnership with the Hampton Roads Alliance, designate a regional entity to act as a single point of entry into offshore wind and coordinate an approach to retain the next generation of workers, including highlighting the advantages of offshore wind careers.

“Virginia’s Southwest is an answer, a resource and the place to be for wind energy manufacturers looking for business partners who can satisfy market demand in a quality fashion,” Payne said. “The agreement we announce today is foundational to our success not just in the wind energy industry but to our ability to rally around opportunity, together. The presidents of our community colleges are setting a great example.

“This is beyond brainstorming — it’s about action — and they are the catalysts,” he said.

VHCC tech center to expand welding, diesel tech

Demand for welders is so great that some of Eddie Fultz’s Virginia Highlands Community College students are being hired for part-time jobs while they’re still completing their training.

“We’re in a manufacturing area where we cannot meet the demand,” says Fultz, coordinator of VHCC’s welding program. “It’s a great problem to have for the college. It’s a great problem to have for people graduating from the program.”

But, he says, the program doesn’t have the capacity to meet its training needs.

That will change this fall with the completion of a $6 million, 18,000-square-foot facility at VHCC that will expand the college’s welding and diesel technology certification programs and bring the off-site programs onto the college’s Abingdon campus.

The Advanced Technology and Workforce Development Center is “specifically designed to meet the industrial needs of our community,” says VHCC President Adam Hutchison. “These are two programs that have high demand and have great-paying jobs at the other end of the training.”

The building also will house the college’s workforce development division, which provides customized training programs and credentials. Welding and diesel courses currently are offered in separate off-campus spaces that both programs have outgrown, Hutchison says. 

“We’re going to triple the size,” Fultz says of the welding shop, which is now under 2,000 square feet. With additional welding booths, the number of students will rise from 32 to 48. The diesel program will increase from 32 to 40.

Bringing the programs onto campus will also connect the students, who earn career studies certificates, to other VHCC resources.

Hutchison credits the “very forward-thinking” design and build team at Bristol, Tennessee-based BurWil Construction Inc. for designing a flexible facility that could be adapted for changing needs, such as VHCC’s plans for adding an alternative fuels vehicles repair program.

VHCC broke ground on the center in November 2021. It’s the first major facility to be built on campus since 1992.

The project is being funded through private gifts, grants and institutional funds. The largest contribution comes from an anonymous community member connected to an industry that employs VHCC graduates, according to Hutchison. The Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission contributed $1.3 million.

Although most of the funds have been raised, Hutchison says, there’s still a $1.5 million funding gap “we’d like to close” in order to equip the facility “in a way best for students.”