The Alabama Community College System today announced details of its launch of an Innovation Center to begin rapidly training Alabamians for jobs in high-demand industries.
The Innovation Center’s rapid training programs will not only help trainees find jobs quickly, but also help reduce the state’s supply chain problems and small business closures, said Mara Harrison, interim executive director of the Innovation Center. The curricula includes classroom courses that can be taken virtually from anywhere in the state, along with in-person lab work that will focus on hands-on training at regional community college locations. Students who complete the training will get an ACCS credential and be ready to work when they complete the courses, Harrison said.
“This takes a burden off them as well,” said Wallace State Community College President Vicki Karolewics. “They’re so short-staffed.Mark Colson, president and CEO of the Alabama Trucking Association, said there are 112,000 people working in the trucking industry in Alabama, about one in every 15 jobs. Trucking ships 86 percent of all goods and materials in the state, he said. Yet the nation is 80,000 drivers short, he said.