New opportunity arriving courtesy of TCAT

Available buildings and sites, good roads and utilities, and business-friendly policies are important, but a skilled workforce probably tops the list. Capable employees not only help attract new employers, but convince existing ones to stay and expand.

Thankfully, there are education professionals in our county and region who work hard to make sure their programs prepare students for today’s jobs. Kelli Kea-Carroll, Director of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) at Hohenwald, says they are responding to area employers’ “screaming need” with a program expansion that is great news for Lawrence County.

Beginning this fall, TCAT Hohenwald will offer its 15-month Industrial Maintenance program in the former Murray facility. Class sites are also being set up in Mt. Pleasant and Perry County, proof of the region-wide need for people with those skills.

Interested students should act now. High school juniors and seniors will have an opportunity to enroll through their schools, but there is plenty of room – and future employment – for adult students.

To begin, complete an Application for Enrollment, available at TCATHohenwald.edu. This is cost-free, but assures you a spot in the Industrial Maintenance program when enrollment for it officially begins in June. The website offers information about financial aid including Tennessee Reconnect, tuition assistance available to adult students.

The site describes the program coming to Lawrenceburg in this way:

The mission of Industrial Maintenance is to provide the student training in the use of equipment and maintenance/repair procedures of industrial equipment in the ever changing technological work place. Industrial maintenance work is characterized by variety because each equipment repair job presents a different problem requiring the knowledge to diagnose and repair.

Instruction prepares the student with the abilities to perform general maintenance work. This program consists of classroom and shop experience in four main phases: Electrical, Machine Shop, Welding, and Sheet Metal. Units of study that also belong on that list are Hydraulics, Pneumatics, and Automation, Kea-Carroll adds.

A LEAP (Labor Education Alignment Program) Grant, a partnership between TCAT and South Central Tennessee Development District, is providing the state-of-the-art equipment needed for the new programs. It’s a challenge to keep up with the constant change in industrial machinery, but school officials have managed to do that and students will train with the very latest equipment.

I am so excited about the positive change this program will bring to our county, to its students and their families. Thanks to everyone involved it making it a reality.