The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Revitalization Commission at its September 27th meeting approved a grant to the Southside Virginia Community College (SVCC) Foundation for training of our workers in advanced manufacturing and other technical skills. The grant in the amount of $456,756 would provide additional equipment at several SVCC locations to expand the existing technical training at those facilities.

One small but very important component of the grant award is a $40,000 initiative to develop modern curricula for advanced manufacturing occupations, specifically, welders, precision equipment operators and industrial maintenance technicians. These occupations were identified in a major study completed by Boston Consulting as being needed to support the projected employment in advanced manufacturing throughout the region.

SVCC has significant training capacity for welders at several of their locations throughout the region and the ability to train precision equipment operators at select locations. The number of trainees in these occupations will need to be increased significantly if the region is to be able to support addition advanced manufacturing employment.

The training of industrial maintenance technicians will require new curricula to be developed and implemented. Virginia's Growth Alliance (VGA) has committed $20,000 of the total $40,000 project cost to launch the development of the curricula for industrial maintenance technicians and other technical occupations.

Advanced manufacturing is one of four target industry sectors targeted for special recruitment to the region by VGA. The other target industry sectors include, wood products, information technology (data centers and software development), and logistics/distribution.