And all that, SCC president Dr. Bill Aiken said, will parlay into skilled workers ready to enter available jobs throughout Sampson and surrounding counties and be removed from, in some cases, unemployment rolls.
“We are excited about this grant,” Aiken said earlier this week. “It allows us to provide needed training in a field that is in high demand.”
SCC’s truck driver program, entering its third year, has provided 100 individuals with completed training. Eighty percent of those, Aiken said, have gone to work in the industry.
The program, which offers both day and weekend classes and cranks up again on Sept. 28, is so popular that the waiting list to be part of the class is excessively long, stretching into years.
By virtue of the grant, Aiken said, the waiting list can be reduced significantly.
“The grant is specifically for the purchase of equipment, which we will do. In fact, we expect to be able to buy two trucks with the money from Golden Leaf. What that does, in essence, is then provide us the ability to offer more students the training than we’ve been able to offer. Obviously we will have enough trucks to offer another course, and that should reduce our waiting list significantly.”
Which is one of the reasons the Golden Leaf Foundation found SCC’s grant so appealing.
“Golden Leaf has provided Sampson Community College’s short-term truck driver training program with funding for equipment needed to double its class size,” said Dan Gerlach, Golden Leaf president. “The foundation’s grant will provide the needed training to fulfill local companies’ needs for qualified drivers.”
And it fulfills yet another requirement as well, that of a linkage between the funding and the existing 12-and-6 Jobs Now program, a mandate that fits nicely into SCC’s offerings, which includes the truck driver training.
The 12-and-6 Jobs Now program offers an assortment of courses designed to give people needed skills in a relatively short period of time that prepares them for the workforce.
According to SCC grant writer Gloria Edwards, local swine and poultry producers in Sampson and Duplin counties have said there will likely be around 80 truck driving positions available within the next 12 to 16 months, a need that SCC’s training will help fill.
“There’s no question I think we are able to meet the industrial needs out there through our training,” Aiken said. “And I certainly believe this grant and this program will have a positive impact on the local economy.”
Regardless the business, Aiken emphasized, some way or another there’s a need for truck driving training. “We’re just happy we can meet that need.”
The grant, Edwards said, makes meeting the need much easier.
“We’ll be able to reach more people because we will have more equipment,” she said.
Truck driving is an in-demand career, with projections showing that in North Carolina alone there will be 7,070 such jobs available, a 16 percent increase over last year.
“Golden Leaf is proud to help SCC build the talent, knowledge and skill of North Carolinians so that they may have the opportunity for immediate employability in the current economy,” Gerlach said.
With one full-time and three part-time instructors and the increase in trucks, Aiken believes SCC’s truck driver training program will continue to be in high demand.
“The thing is now we’ll be better able to meet that demand,” the SCC president said.
Another significant aspect of SCC’s truck training program is that the bulk of the expense has been afforded without county or state tax dollars.
All the equipment, Aiken said, has either been donated or will be purchased with grant funds.
The “generosity” of Prestage Farms, Smithfield Foods and Ezzell Trucking allowed for the purchase of the first two trucks; Golden Leaf’s grant will allow for the purchase of the next two vehicles.
In addition, Ag Provisions, between Warsaw and Kenansville, has provided space for the training.
“We’ve been very fortunate to the kind of support it takes to make programs like this a success,” Aiken said.
Aiken said he was especially appreciative of the Golden Leaf Foundation which has, over the past seven or so years provided nearly $1 million in funding to the local community college.
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