A Daviess County college is trying to address the shortage of skilled workers for advanced manufacturing in Kentucky. Owensboro Community and Technical College breaks ground on its new $12 million Industry Innovation Center on March 4.
The new building will allow welding, electrical, and heating and air conditioning programs to move into state-of-the-art facilities.
College president Scott Williams says those programs will have some unique training that’s in demand for advanced manufacturing.
“Robotic welding, robotics, we’ve never been able have those programs, because we’ve not had the room to do robotics,” says Williams.
“We now will have in this building a robotics lab. So students will learn how to use the robots for welding, as well as the maintenance of the robots,” he says.
The programs in the skilled trades programs will complement robotics and other training needed for business and industry.
“We have very robust and broad types of industries here in our community,” says Williams. “Manufacturing is kind of at our core and there is a great need for highly-skilled trades.”
The new building will allow the college to double its enrollment in several specialty areas of the skilled trades.
The new building is part of the school’s Advanced Technology Center. The Industry Innovation Center is expected to be ready for classes in the fall of 2017.
