By Marcus McClain
NEA Town Courier
The ANC Board of Trustees approved the implantation of a Steelmaking Boot Camp organized through ANC in their June 21 meeting.
Incoming president Christopher Heigle noted that Arkansas Department of Commerce secretary High McDonald, along with director for the office of Skills Development and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, met at ANC several months ago to discuss further filling steel manufacturing positions in the county.
This meeting was organized by the Great River Economic Development Board and local employers expressed their desire for more steel related training with an anticipated 1,000 new hires. McDonald invited ANC to submit a proposal for the training revenue needed to fill the upcoming positions.
“We went back to the drawing board and came up with a pretty good proposal I feel,” Heigle said. “This will allow us to hire four additional staff members. One would be the coordinator with some additional instructional duties as well. But the real meat and potatoes of this project is working with other colleges such as Black River Tech, East Arkansas Community College, ASU-Newport and ASU-Mid South.”
The boot camp consists of 80 hours of workforce training and education over a two week period, accommodating up to 25 participants per cycle.
During the camp’s opening year, ANC will offer 20 separate cohorts creating a total of 40 training weeks in Mississippi County alone. Program partners will offer another 22 cohorts as a whole across the Northeast Arkansas region.
Participants can be entered into the program directly through company placement, or through the bootcamp application pool.
“It’s a very innovative program. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve been involved in since I’ve been in high education to be honest with you,” Heigle said. “If we nail this, we’re going to show everybody in not just the state but the nation, how you meet the needs of industry.”
The OSD presented the college with an executed MOU funding the project for a total of $1.213,800. ANC’s portion will be $602,000 and approximately $350,00 will be spent on salaries.
Current President Shemwell added, “Roughly half of the money is for the other colleges. But the entire project will flow through ANC. These other colleges will be under ANC’s umbrella. We’re very sensitive to protect things that are steel related as our space. But they were very excited to work with us on this as well. “
For general public applicants, recruitment opportunities will be available through direct mail, local and regional job fairs, cable advertising, and social media through the boot camp coordinator.
Selection day events will be scheduled as the applicant pool dictates. Additionally, prior to the beginning of each cohort, a selection day will be held for companies to make presentations and interview candidates. The only exception would be if the cycle is already full with previous applicants.
The board also approved a resolution to rent the Arkansas Department of Workforce Service building. The building is under the possession of the ANC Foundation and Heigle explained how the space can be of benefit to the college.
In 2012, ANC entered an MOU with the foundation to renovate that facility with ADWS funds for a continued lease of 20 years at no rent essentially. As we can see, they are leaving the building before that lease is up. So that will leave to the tune of about $604,000 of unearned liability that still remains with the foundation. We’re going to have the need for four additional individuals now and we’re already short on office space. I’d very much like to enter into a fair market rent agreement with the foundation,” Heigle said.
“It’s something I feel like we need. Without it, we truly do not have the office space.”
Board member Dan Ritchey questioned why the board needs to pay market value rent to the foundation.
To this, Shemwell said, “It’s an asset of the foundation. And we didn’t pay rent before because we thought it was advantageous to us and the foundation to have ADWS on campus. I think it’s a good move for the college and foundation because it is privately owned by the foundation and could generate income. Everything the foundation does, comes back to the college. At any point if we’re strapped for case, I’m sure the foundation would work with us. But this gives us a way to pay them something on their asset, and again, the money is going to come back to the college. And the foundation has much more flexibility on what they can do with their money versus what we can do as a state agency.”