A consortium of five Arizona community colleges has been awarded a $13.5 million federal Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant to train trade-impacted workers and other adults for high-skill, high-wage employment and advancement in sustainable energy and mining industries.

The Arizona Sun Corridor Get Into Energy Consortium (ASC-GIEC) consists of Northland Pioneer College, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Pima Community College, Yavapai College–Prescott and consortium leader Estrella Mountain Community College. NPC will receive $1,971,330 over three years under the U.S. Department of Labor grant, which was announced Sept. 19 by Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, as part of a $500 million innovative training initiative to universities and community colleges nationwide.

“This grant comes at the perfect time,” noted NPC President Dr. Jeanne Swarthout. “NPC just awarded a construction contract to build a Skills Center on the Holbrook – Painted Desert Campus, which will provide state-of-the-art training facilities for welding, construction trades and industrial maintenance and operations programs. With the proposed potash mining operations east of Holbrook the new Skills Center will be ready to prepare workers for these high-paying skilled jobs as well.”

“This is great news for our college, industry partners and the state of Arizona,” declared Swarthout.

The primary focus of the grant is to build the skill sets necessary for employees to move into energy jobs or other occupations requiring similar skill sets. These jobs range from the technician level, line workers, plant operators, skilled crafts to engineers.

The five-member ASC-GIEC will develop a common curriculum, credit certificates and degrees to allow seamless transferability to accommodate the needs of students and industries participating in the Sun Corridor Get Into Energy programs. Students interested in pursuing baccalaureate degrees in engineering or other energy-related degrees will have a transfer path to Arizona State University (ASU), through the collaboration of the Science Foundation of Arizona (SFAz), which is chartered by the State of Arizona to facilitate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education opportunities across all public, private and nonprofit organizations, colleges and universities.

The Arizona Sun Corridor Get Into Energy Consortium will employ a variety of innovative and proven workforce preparedness strategies to train trade-impacted and other adults. Trade-impacted describes workers who have lost jobs due to those jobs being moved outside of the United States. The initiative advances sustainable solutions to meet the critical energy demands of the energy and mining industries, while improving the content and delivery of education and training programs in the Arizona Sun Corridor.

Throughout the grant process, the community college consortium received a tremendous amount of encouragement, and financial support, from their industry partners at Arizona Public Service, Salt River Project, Tucson Electric Power and Freeport McMoRan, as well as some of the smaller copper mining operations.

Affordable training programs and educational resources developed nationally under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants will be shared for free use by public and other education providers. More about the program is available at www.doleta.gov/taaccct.

Northland Pioneer College serves the residents of Navajo and Apache counties through four regional campuses and five centers with a variety of educational options for academic, career and technical and personal enrichment. NPC supports each student’s educational goals through affordable tuition, small class sizes and caring, professional instructors.

For more information about NPC programs and services, visit www.npc.edu or call (800) 266-7845.