Husted tours Vanguard; $9.4 million awarded in grants for vocational and technical ed
FREMONT – Following the April 16 announcement of $9.4 million in state grants for vocational and technical programs, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted toured the Fremont campus of the Vanguard Sentinel Career and Technology Center on Wednesday.
Husted explained that the strategy behind the funding is based on emerging demographic needs.
“Certainly, there is a demographic need. You see more people retiring, fewer young people available. We can’t afford to lose anybody,” Husted said. “We need to have every single student skilled toward where those opportunities are. If you do that, everybody wins, because the students have job security and higher pay. Employers have the talent they need to win, and mom and dad have kids who have a job when they graduate, which they like too, and no college debt.”
The school received two grants from the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation. The Career Tech Construction Grant, for $7.8 million, is slated to help programs in manufacturing and welding, construction trades and the EMT fire programs. The Career Technical Education Equipment Grant, for $1.6 million, to purchase equipment, instructional materials, facilities and provide for some operational costs. The $9.4 million will help to expand career tech programs to more than 200 students.
“We’re gearing funding toward need and opportunity. If we know that certain types of jobs are being created, we get money to the educational institutions to train students for those careers. That helps the students because they are prepared when they leave high school,” Husted said. “They are job ready. It’s important that we align resources with needs and opportunities. That’s what a strategy is. What are you trying to accomplish and are your funding priorities in line behind that?”
Husted was shown facilities for the skilled trades, the EMT program and the AIM Construction and Manufacturing.
He stopped and talked with students in each of the programs. One of those students was Clyde High School junior Olivia Konves, who is in the electrical trades program.
“Right now, I can wire studs for new houses, and we’ve also learned a lot of controls, on the industrial side. Last year, we learned residential and this year we concentrated on industrial,” Konves said.
Husted asked her how she feels the program is working.
“I definitely feel like I’m a lot more ahead of other people, even adults, because I’ve already done all the basics that you need to do on the construction side. I’m a step ahead,” Konves said.
She learned the importance of the skilled trades through her parents. Her father is an electrician.
She plans on attending Bowling Green State University, a Construction Management degree. She will be taking College Credit Plus classes her senior year and already has an internship lined up with Vernon Nagle, a general infrastructure construction company.
Lenny Clouse, the owner of Clouse Construction Corporation, also attended the tour and spoke with Husted.
He has hired Vanguard Sentinel graduates. His company is a large general contractor and manufacturer of pre-engineered metal buildings.
“I’ll take these students all day. We were bringing on adults, and most of them had baggage. With the students, we start them off with the basics and train them up. Many of the skills we need, they already have. It’s great,” Clouse said.
The tour was part of a larger three-stop tour for In-Demand Jobs Week. It included earlier stops at the Tri-Rivers Career Center, in Marion, and the Toledo Libbey Glass Manufacturing Facility.
419-332-2674
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Husted tours Vanguard; $9.4 million awarded in vo-tech grants
