ACCS Opens its New Innovation Center – Enrollment Begins for Rapid Workforce Training

The Alabama Community College System (ACCS) has recently opened its $10 million Innovation Center. Civic leaders, students, and industry partners were all on hand to celebrate the kickoff, an event that carries with it much significance for Alabama’s workforce needs of tomorrow. 

According to business and workforce development leaders throughout the state, the need for rapid training is critical. In addition to facing chronic supply chain issues, Alabama now has the unwelcome distinction as having the nation’s 11th largest worker shortage. 

Through launching the first of its many industry-tailored programs, ACCS endeavors to help bridge this gap by offering programs that quickly train students, so they can attain immediate and secure employment in some of the State’s highest demand industries.

ACCS received funding from the State Legislature to help develop the Innovation Center, with the overarching goal of expanding skills training and technical career programs that can directly lead to nationally recognized short-term certifications in key industries.

To this end, the Innovation Center will roll out high-demand rapid training programs that include butchery and meat cutting, commercial truck driving (CDL), accommodations and recreational services, food and beverage services, heavy equipment operations, plumbing, and facilities maintenance.

Training will be in the form of short-term programs – classes that students can start from anywhere in the state and finish with an in-person lab in a regional ACCS location. Once a student completes the training, they will be considered ready-to-work and awarded a credential. 

The ACCS Credential is awarded to individuals who complete courses through ACCS for training that is directly aligned with current business and industry need.

The credential communicates to businesses and institutions of higher education that the skills taught in the program have been mastered by individuals who are now ready for employment and/or additional education.

It doesn’t end with the completion of one program, however. Students can continue to build on their skillsets incrementally through earning additional certifications at their local community college.

“It’s a neat project that the ACCS is putting on,” said Mark Moore, Public Relations Director at Drake State. “It’s going to be a benefit because the different colleges in our system might have different resources. This will be kind of like a centralized resource, because it will be a lot of online learning, made to be really easy for the students to access the knowledge and then instantly take into the workplace.”

The Alabama Trucking Association (ATA) is also proud to partner with the ACCS in its efforts to attract and connect jobseekers with the training they need to enter the trucking industry. 

“America’s commercial trucking industry is facing a critical shortage of about 80,000 professional drivers,” said Mark Colson, ATA’s President and CEO. “Here in Alabama, trucking already provides 112,000-plus jobs – about 1 of 15 in the state. These are high-quality jobs offering great pay and endless career path opportunities. The ACCS Innovation Center is the right program to supercharge the availability of CDL offerings in our state and enhance the existing programs that are already preparing our future workforce.”

The hospitality industry also benefits from the endeavor, thanks to a $1 million grant from Alabama Governor Kay Ivey. The Innovation Center and the Alabama Tourism Department has collaborated in the interest of helping workers train for and find jobs in the state’s $16 billion hospitality industry. Presented by Coastal Community College, 100% of the graduates of the pilot training project were successfully matched with jobs and were hired upon completion of the training.

As part of the program growth and expansion, there will be additional Innovation Centers strategically located throughout the state.

“There’s going to be an Innovation Center, a physical location in Decatur,” said Moore. “So, we will be able to have a mix of teaching styles for the students, and to provide another route for them to pick up some very specific skills that they can instantly apply to getting a job.”

The Innovation Centers are not in direct competition with the local colleges. In fact, what they are offering Alabama is part of an overarching solution to its workforce deficit. 

“The innovation center programs are going to be offered for credentials that the colleges don’t already offer,” said Houston Blackwood, Workforce Solutions Director at Calhoun Community College. “They’re not competing with the local colleges, they’re supplementing, conforming needs based on industry requests. They’re doing things that the colleges aren’t already doing or they’re partnering with us to make what we’re doing more available.”

The Alabama Community College System (ACCS) is governed by the Alabama Community College System Board of Trustees. In its offering of 24 community colleges in over 130 locations, the ACCS provides a gateway for first-class, affordable education and technical training that meet the needs of the ever-evolving workforce. 

More than 144,000 Alabamians already benefit from the various certification, credential, dual enrollment, and degree programs that the ACCS offers alongside leading industry partners. The System includes the Alabama Technology Network, which provides extensive training and service offerings directly to business and industry.

“In our area, the Huntsville metro area, being the biggest population center of the state and with it continuing to grow, all of the credentials that they’re offering will help us keep our community running correctly,” said Blackwood. “It makes our quality of life better, it makes our employment more diverse, and it gives more young people an opportunity to get jobs that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. So, I think as a whole, it bolsters the economy, it makes the workforce more diverse, so we’re not so dependent on any one thing.”

For more information, visit innovation.accs.edu.

Photos courtesy of the Alabama Community College System (ACCS)