As of Wednesday, Nov. 29, the Wallace State Community College Workforce Development program has a new home in the heart of the city of Cullman’s industrial parks.

WSCC unveiled its new Workforce Training Center, located on the grounds of Rehau, at 2424 Industrial Dr. SW. The building previously housed Rehau’s engineering department until the company recently relocated the offices to the main facility.

During a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday, Cullman Economic Development Agency Executive Director Dale Greer said the new location’s close proximity to some of the area’s most crucial industrial employers would allow for easier access to employee training, rather than having them attend courses farther away.

“There are times I think companies have difficulties sending their workers out of the plant and down to the college,” Greer said. “With this center, what you’re doing is bringing it to them.”

WSCC has already been touted as being on the forefront of providing short-term training and certificate programs to meet the needs of Alabama’s workforce. Tracy Rushing, director of Safety and Human Resources with R.E. Garrison Trucking, directly attributes the company’s ability to retain long-haul drivers in the midst of a national driver shortage to their partnership with WSCC.

“When a new driver moves their family here, we’re able to envelop them into the community early. Because they are trained here, it creates a special kind of synergy that doesn’t go away. They become long-term employees for us,” Rushing said.

WSCC vice president for Advancement & Innovation, Suzanna Harbin said the new training center will provide the same classes for phlebotomy, computer, fiber optics, manufacturing as well as some heavy equipment training, which has already been available through the college. She said the new center will simply create a central location to host these programs.

Employers will also be able to contact the center with customized training requests and no-cost Skills for Success programs to meet particular needs they may be experiencing.

Harbin said while the types of programs which fall under the workforce development umbrella have typically been referred to as “non-credit” courses, as industries have experienced an increased demand for skilled workers, the center will spark a shift where skills based learning is viewed as equally important as academic courses.

“Nobody wants to be “non” anything. Non-credit just means you are not getting an academic credit. I wanted to change the page, flip it, turn it and make it something somebody wants to be a part of. What this center represents is how every skill and every credit counts. It’s workforce credit/skills credit,” Harbin said.

Jeremy Sturdivant, Director of Programs for Jimmie Hale Mission, said he has witnessed the effect workforce training is able to have through WSCC’s partnership with the organization’s Royal Pines facility located in Hayden, Alabama. Sturdivant estimated more than 60% of Royal Pines’ clients have received some type of education through WSCC programs and have used those skills to impact their communities.

“What we might think of as minute education, or a small stepping stone, becomes the catalyst that changes a whole family dynamic. When you change that dynamic and give people the ability to provide for their families, it does something to the individual, it does something to their community and it also does something to the world. It’s much bigger than you think,” Sturdivant said.