Oct. 2—MOSES LAKE — Various organizations and partnerships across Grant County are working together to train as many people as possible to enter the workforce to meet high demand in the county and beyond.
Sue Kane, North Central Education Service District's director of STEM initiatives & strategic partnerships, said that the workforce demand currently outpaces the number of people enrolled in workforce education programs in Grant County.
"We could double the number of kids that are on track to earn that credential, just to meet local demand," Kane said. "It's not actually better or worse than a lot of the other counties across Washington, but it's still going to take everybody to be able to get there."
The education service district's Apple STEM network and its Career Connected Learning program are focused on developing multiple areas in Grant County with different industry focuses.
"It sort of depends on the jobs. For example, the PUD jobs, those would hit more toward Ephrata sometimes," Kane said. "The data center jobs, those actually land more toward Quincy, although there are data center jobs and IT jobs in Moses Lake too. In reality, employers are going to draw from all of those communities to meet their needs."
The network partners with community colleges and schools in the region — in Grant County that means Big Bend Community Colleges and local school districts.
"Once a quarter we get together, we are looking at the data, we are learning where there is that gap or that need," Kane said, "which is especially important in Grant County, as we approach that economic development of all of the newcomers, Sila (Nanotechnologies), Group14, Twelve."
Kane said the primary way Career Connected Learning works with school districts toward this objective is through Career and Technical Education courses. Kane said they also work with schools on instituting dual enrollment and college in the high school courses.
"To the extent that you can get those courses, that content, into that high school schedule, that allows you to take advantage of some of these Dual Credit courses where it's not out of pocket for students, it's taking advantage of some of the really generous support that our state offers to K-12 students to get that start," Kane said.
Big Bend Community College is also part of the network of institutions working together in Grant County to develop the future workforce. Big Bend Dean of Workforce Education Daneen Berry-Guerin said that the college's most popular programs at the moment are Manufacturing and Process Technologies and the aviation programs, including Aviation Maintenance Technology.