Arizona officials tout community colleges in workforce readiness push

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey joined Arizona Western College President Dr. Daniel Corr and Arizona Commerce Authority President & CEO Sandra Watson to tout a program that strives to increase the labor pool of skilled workers in Arizona.

“Arizona’s community colleges are an integral part of the engine that drives our economic momentum. And boy, in Arizona do we have momentum,” the Republican said in a press release. “Community colleges in Arizona have not only been the secret sauce, but the secret weapon for our transformed economy.”

Governor Ducey’s proposed fiscal year 2023 budget would establish six workforce accelerators at community colleges in the state. His office says that they would be “advanced manufacturing training centers.”

“We are community colleges, but more importantly, we are colleges of the community,” Dr. Corr, president of Arizona Western College and Chair of the Arizona Community College Coordinating Council, said in the press release Tuesday. “We’re training people for today’s jobs and tomorrow’s jobs based on local needs.”

The Governor’s office notes that the local economy is changing; it used to depend heavily on construction and tourism. Now, it says it’s more diverse and has a strong manufacturing base.

“Arizona has experienced a surge of statewide manufacturing success,” Sandra Watson, president and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority, said in the press release. “Arizona’s advanced manufacturing training centers are critical to maintaining the manufacturing momentum that our state is currently enjoying. This provides our existing employers with ready-to-work talent and makes Arizona more competitive in attracting additional operations to our state.

The Governor hopes the accelerators will be similar to Drive48, an advanced manufacturing training center that the state launched at Central Arizona College in Pinal County last year. It provides job training in automotive assembly, advanced manufacturing, heavy equipment and more.

Drive48 was created in partnership with Lucid Motors; more than 1,700 of its employees have been trained at the Drive48 facility.