Prairie State College Developing Mobile Training Centers
Prairie State College Developing Mobile Training Centers
By: Katherine Newman
Prairie State College in Chicago Heights recently received a $938,447 federal grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to help fund the development of mobile training facilities that will bring on-site job training in welding, computer numeric control(CNC), and robotics to companies across the south suburbs.
The grant will go towards building two 53 foot semi-trailers which will be outfitted with hands-on and virtual training equipment. One trailer will be outfitted with welding equipment and the other trailer will be CNC and robotics equipment, according to Craig Schmidt, vice president of community and economic development at Prairie State College.
“Our intent is to work with local business and instead of the employees coming to the college for training we are actually bringing the training to them. This way, we can do it either before, during, or after their shift depending on what we work out with the company,” said Schmidt. “We would utilize a classroom at the company site and then when it came time for the hands-on stuff, we would have the trailer there to do the hands-on lab portions.”
The school already has programs on campus to train individuals in welding, CNC, and robotics. With this grant, they will be able to travel to local businesses, schools, and communities to increase interest in the programs and offer more accessible opportunities for training.
“Our initial intent is to bring this training to companies to up-skill the current employees, but our hope is to go to some of our local communities where resources are scarce so we can provide training in the hopes of helping individuals to earn a skill so they can get a job,” said Schmidt. “Also, to work with our local high school and middle schools to start getting them
interested in the manufacturing industry.”
Schmidt hopes to have the trailers completed and ready for trainees this fall. He said they are planning to train about 300 people in the first two years of operation based on commitments they received, while putting the grant together, from interested companies.
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