PLAYING FOR KEEPS: State educators train and maintain a local workforce.

• Author: Blake, Kathy
• Position: WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

On the first Friday of October, 225 Randolph County eighth-graders boarded nine school buses for a day of local-industry plant tours and hands-on activities at Randolph Community College's mechatronics, machining and welding labs.

Manufacturing Days, to be repeated in March for 10th-graders, is a partnership among RCC, the Randolph County School System and Asheboro City Schools as part of Apprenticeship Randolph to showcase manufacturing career opportunities. Nine businesses participated in the October event.

The apprenticeship is one of several innovative workforce initiatives across the state to promote close-to-home careers by dipping into elementary, middle and high schools.

"Developing a pipeline of well-skilled, educated citizens whose economic mobility is constantly improving is what our 58 community colleges do every day. One focus is to identify youth apprenticeship opportunities," says Maureen Little, vice president of economic development with N.C. Community Colleges.

Apprenticeships and work-based learning through community colleges are helping businesses educate and keep local employees.

Chris Chung, CEO of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, says the state has two streams of workforce growth. The state's organic workforce includes graduates of local high schools and two--and four-year colleges, as well as job seekers exiting the military. The second stream comes from migration to the state. That second stream amounts to a strong flow mainly benefiting big cities. The first needs development.

"The organic can't change overnight. You get more people into your technical colleges where they learn the skills they need to be successful, and it takes time," Chung says.

In August, the Eastern Triad Workforce Initiative, a public-private partnership for on-the-job training, awarded $3.2 million to the Triad counties of Alamance, Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham to support apprenticeship programs in targeted industries.

"Randolph County is heavy in manufacturing, and we are addressing the need through a variety of programs," says Stacey Miller, pathways activities coordinator for Apprenticeship Randolph.

Chris Harrington, director of operations at private label compression garment designer and manufacturer Elastic Therapy in Asheboro, says apprenticeships are a practical step for his company.

"We participate in the [Randolph apprenticeship] program for a few different reasons, and one of them is that we cannot find...