Companies rely on colleges to train their labor forces

by Elizabeth Hayes
for Virginia Business
April 2006

This spring, Tidewater Community College will offer a course in maritime welding. The curriculum wasn’t designed by a bunch of academics. Rather, representatives from more than 20 companies that employ these hard-to-find welders —including Northrop Grumman Newport News, BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair, Earl Industries and Colonna’s Shipyard — met monthly at the college’s Portsmouth campus to develop classes that will train workers to weld high-strength steel found in ships.

Tapping the business community’s expertise to design classes ensures students will leave with marketable job skills. “There’s always been this gap between well-meaning educators in the world and real-life business and what we needed,” says Ron Ritter, senior vice president of Earl Industries. Tidewater “has been very aggressive in creating programs with business to fully meet their needs. They feel it’s their mission.”

Such involvement by industry reflects the increasing extent to which companies rely on Virginia’s community colleges to train their labor forces. At the state’s 23 schools, more and more Virginians are enrolling in work force training programs. Some students come straight out of high school. Others are seasoned workers sent by employers to their local community college to learn specialized skills.

Statewide, 118,223 people completed work force courses at Virginia community colleges during the 2005 fiscal year, up from 116,288 the year before, says Trenton Hightower, assistant vice chancellor for work force development of the Virginia Community College System. Additionally, more than 700 employers paid for 53,294 workers to complete customized courses.

In all, the colleges provided work force-related services to 170,299 students. That number includes more than 52,000 in transitional programs (such as apprenticeships), Middle College (which allows students between the ages of 18 and 24 to simultaneously pursue a GED, an associate degree and work force certification) and the Career Readiness Certificate (a program that certifies core skills in applied math and reading for information).

The community college system’s work force training spans the job gamut from emergency management technicians to potters, chefs and bulldozer operators. More than 7,700 people last year completed apprenticeships in trades such as plumbing, electronics and carpentry, says Hightower.
Besides apprenticeships, community colleges assist business by establishing noncredit certificate courses. They can be set up in weeks, based on industry needs, and include pretesting and post-testing.

Currently, the system is partnering with the state Cemetery Board to provide a cemetery management program, says Hightower. It’s also developing a Spanish interpreter training program with the state Supreme Court. In another example of flexibility, Southside Virginia Community College is partnering with the Virginia Department of Public Health to establish an Environmental Health Center, with a five-acre site to demonstrate waste disposal systems.

Other new programs established in response to industry needs include viticulture and enology classes at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville. Wine industry experts teach the classes at regional vineyards and wineries. While the program began with six classes last spring and summer, 18 new courses were planned for this school year. Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown also is developing a viticulture and enology program.

At Blue Ridge Community College, companies such as the Hershey Co., Hollister Inc. and Coors Brewing Co. — makers of chocolate, medical products and beer, respectively — helped to develop a high-performance manufacturing program, says Mary Sullivan, the college’s work force development coordinator.

Next up, several colleges are evaluating programs in nuclear medicine in response to the needs of the health-care industry, says Hightower.

“Years ago, colleges operated in their own academic world,’’ notes Theresa Bryant, Tidewater’s vice president for work force development. “There’s a lot more industry involvement in each piece of it. We want our graduates to be prepared for what the company needs. It’s a different way of looking at it.”