A significant investment is being made into Mississippi Delta Community College’s lineman training program.
Moorhead native and Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, flanked by MDCC President Larry Nabors, South Delta Planning and Development Director Tommy Goodwin and their project partners broke ground on a new $348,000 Lineman Training facility on Monday.
Bryant was guest speaker and touted the overall benefit of programs such as the one offered by MDCC.
”It’s just so important for us, what we’ve pushed so hard to accomplish is workforce training programs particularly here in the Mississippi Delta, whether it is Milwaukee Tools adding another 300 employees or the lineman program here at Mississippi Delta Community College,” Bryant said. “This will mean jobs, good careers for these young men and women into the future, and that is so critically important to all of us.”
During his speech to the crowd, Bryant mentioned and advocated a junior college initiative.
“It’s called ‘Mississippi Works’ and what we are doing is we have $50 million of funding that the Mississippi Legislature has allowed us to access and we’re putting that money into workforce training programs into community colleges and its beginning to make all the difference. We put $75,000 from the Mississippi Works program into this building and we believe it’s going to pay off,” Bryant said.
Development of the 4,000-square-foot project has been in the works for the past three years according Mitzi Woods, SDPDD.
“This is a true partnership of public, private, local, federal and state funds that have come together to put this building up,” said Woods.
Woods said they have been operating out of a trailer for the past eight years and the number of students has fluctuated with the largest class so far having 33 participants.
“The class before was 19, so that really put us in a bind,” she added.
Reed Abraham, vice-president college advancement and public relations said, “we have a lot of folks that are partners with us to make this happen, all of these folks see the need.”
The interior design of the building consists primarily of a large open area with learning labs where the students will conduct hands-on work related to the different aspects of the lineman duties. The remaining area will house a classroom, offices, a locker-room, kitchen facilities and rest rooms.
The 16-week lineman program began at MDCC in 2010 and at least 15 classes have graduated in its seven and a half years of operation. Abraham said the program has a 95 percent placement rate immediately upon graduation.
Nabors said bids on the building came in about a month ago.
He said that more money has come available for the project.
“We’ll have another $100,000 that we’ll spend on equipment and supplies to fix the building up,” Nabors said. “So, it’s going to be close to over a half-million dollar project before we’re through,” Nabors said. The building should be ready by the end of summer.
Nabors thanked their partners, which included SDPDD, Delta Regional Authority, Delta Electric Power Association, Delta Workforce, Foundation for the Mid-South and the college’s board.
