EGCC grant to address skills gap

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Eastern Gateway Community College will receive nearly $3.5 million from the U.S. Department of Labor to help develop a new manufacturing training center in the Mahoning Valley.

Laura Meeks, Eastern Gateway Community College president, said the grants were secured with help from the Mahoning Valley Manufacturing Coalition.

“We’ve known for a long time that there’s a gap in skills for what’s needed for manufacturing in the Valley,” she said. “There are high-paying jobs but they require high skills.”

Eastern Gateway will receive $2.5 million in funding to develop a new manufacturing training center to prepare students for high-skill occupations such as welding and industrial maintenance, according to a news release from U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th.

The college will get nearly $1 million more to create hands-on and work-based advanced-manufacturing training programs as part of a $15 million consortium of 11 colleges led by Lorain County Community College.

With these funds, Eastern Gateway will serve workers in Ashtabula, Belmont, Carroll, Geauga, Harrison, Jefferson, Mahoning, Portage, Stark and Trumbull counties who are eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance that helps workers who lost their jobs due to unfair foreign trade – including veterans and adult community-college students.

“This is wonderful news for Eastern Gateway and Northeast Ohio,” Ryan said in the news release. “The workers in our state have been hit hard over the years by job loss due to unfair foreign trade and a weak economy. These men and women deserve a hand up and an opportunity to develop the additional skills needed to remain employable in an ever-evolving manufacturing sector. These retraining programs are critical for our nation to have the high-skill workforce necessary to remain a world leader in manufacturing.”

The $2.5 million grant was announced Monday in a news conference Vice President Joe Biden, Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.