Thirteen Washington two-year colleges will share $1.58 million in Governor’s Investment in Aerospace (GIA) grants to develop fast turnover training in aerospace. A mix of Gov. Christine Gregoire’s discretionary Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funds and state aerospace training funds, the grants are designed to assist community and technical colleges throughout the state develop new training in aerospace industry-identified areas.
In response to the governor’s direction of the discretionary WIA funds and the grant request for proposals, community and technical colleges in Washington collaboratively formed the Aerospace Consortium for Employment (ACE). The consortium’s mission is to meet urgent workforce needs with short-term training programs in the areas of precision machining, machine maintenance, fiber optics and quality assurance/inspection. The consortium worked with The Boeing Company to identify areas of immediate need in the aerospace industry and identified two to six month training program opportunities to meet those needs.
ACE applied for and was awarded a GIA grant, which will be applied toward developing programs that retrain or enhance skilled aerospace workers in precision machining, machine maintenance, fiber optics and quality assurance/inspection. Fund allocation and usage vary between the schools. On a whole, the monies will go toward equipment purchase, additional faculty and program development.
Below is a listing of the ACE colleges and their portions of the grant: Bates Technical College (Tacoma) — $91,229
Bellingham Technical College (Bellingham) — $112,944
Columbia Basin College (Pasco) — $111,232
Everett Community College (Everett) — $114,466
Green River Community College (Auburn) — $167,234
Lake Washington Institute of Technology (Kirkland) — $172,431
Olympic College (Bremerton) — $101,677
Shoreline Community College (Shoreline) — $80,856
South Puget Sound Community College (Olympia) — $53,188
South Seattle Community College (Seattle) — $3,432
Yakima Valley Community College (Yakima) — $38,600
Two additional colleges received GIA grants:
Clover Park Technical College (Lakewood) — $356,000
Spokane Community College (Spokane) — $176,887
