Gateway's Manufacturing Pipeline Initiatives Judged Best in the Nation

The Workforce Solutions Division of Gateway Community & Technical College has won a national award from the National Council for Workforce Education (NCWE) for the colleges efforts to recruit and prepare workers for manufacturing jobs.

Gateway received the NCWE 2012 Exemplary Program Award for a Credit Workforce Development Program for its Manufacturing Pipeline Initiatives program that offers academic credit for customized skill upgrade training. The initiative uses customized technical and performance skill training, apprenticeship programs, academic advisors at company sites, and career mapping sessions for incumbent workers to expand the pipeline of qualified workers for regional manufacturers. In addition, the college has created several new manufacturing certificates.

Gateway's program was chosen from an impressive list of applicants from across the nation, said Rebecca Nickoli, NCWE president, who added that the program is being highlighted as a promising practice on the NCWE website to enable other colleges to benefit from Gateway's approach.

Gateway offers six academic programs that train people for careers in high-wage, high-demand manufacturing fields and also works extensively with local employers to provide skill training for incumbent workers.

Manufacturing is leading our regions economic recovery, yet manufacturers are struggling to find qualified candidates for job openings, said Ross Meyer, executive director of Partners for a Competitive Workforce. Gateway is playing a critical role in developing a pipeline of skilled talent to fill these in-demand jobs. We congratulate Gateway on their innovation and leadership in closing this skills gap.

Gateway's presence in Northern Kentucky is a tremendous asset to the regions workforce development initiatives, noted Debby Combs, chair of the Northern Kentucky Workforce Investment Board and director of organizational development and strategic initiative for The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

We know we can count on Gateway to provide employers, incumbent workers and students with world-class workforce training and career preparation, Combs added. We are pleased to see Gateway and its Workforce Solutions Division, under the leadership of Dr. Angie Taylor, receive national recognition for the work they are doing to enhance our local economy.

A recent workforce survey sponsored by the Northern Kentucky Industrial Park Association found that local manufacturers expect nearly 1,200 job openings in the next 12 months, with the greatest number of openings for manufacturing technicians. Manufacturers currently have more than 680 openings unfilled due to a lack of skilled candidates.

The survey also found that many people have outdated perceptions about manufacturing jobs, a fact that contributes to the worker shortage.

Yesterdays repetitive assembly-line jobs have been replaced by today's clean, high-tech environments that require critical thinking, the ability to solve problems independently, computer literacy and a desire to contribute to a larger common goal, said Angie Taylor, Gateway vice president of Workforce Solutions and Innovations. That's part of what we teach in our programs.

Gateway has capacity available in its manufacturing programs, and registration for the spring semester, which begins Jan. 14, is under way. The college has scheduled one-stop information sessions at 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. on Dec. 14. The sessions are designed to enable students to complete all the steps for admission in a single day. For details or to sign up for one of the sessions, call (859) 441-4500 or 855-3GO-GCTC and select the Admissions option.