A fund drive is underway to raise $4.5 million for a construction project at Owensboro Community and Technical College.
A capital campaign kicked off Monday to finance a new 50,000-square-foot skilled trades center. Once completed, the school will move its heating, ventilation, and air conditioning program from the downtown campus and its welding program from the southeastern campus to the skilled trades center on the main campus.
OCTC President Jim Klauber told WKU Public Radio that the facility is important because it will educate the region’s future workers.
"About 90 percent of our graduates are people who were born here and are going to stay here, and so that is very important to the economic health of the Daviess County region, but also the surrounding counties," said Dr. Klauber. Some of our sister colleges do not offer some of the technical trade programs that we do, and we also do workforce training for those areas, as well."
The Messenger-Inquirer reports OCTC received $9 million in state funding for the $13.5 million project through bonds that will be paid off with an $8-per-credit-hour student fee. Of the $4.5 million left to raise, the Owensboro City Commission and Daviess County Fiscal Court have each pledged $1 million toward the project.
Dr. Klauber hopes to wrap up fundraising by the end of this year and open the center in 2017.
