Career Center partnership recognizes first graduates

An innovative partnership that helps train people to work in construction trades recognized its first graduates this month.

The Sheet Metal Workers Pre-apprentice Project, sponsored by the local metal workers union and the Heart of Knoxville Career and Resource Center at the Magnolia Avenue Campus, honored 14 graduates at a special dinner March 22 at the Knox Area Training Center.

The program is operated under a May 2004 contract between the Career Center and Sheet Metal Workers Union Local 5 and Joint Apprenticeship Committee Local 46 to train residents of Knoxville’s Empowerment Zone in metal-working skills. So far, 32 persons have been accepted into the program. Of the 14 who have been trained, 11 have been placed in apprenticeships or full-time jobs.

Because of the success of the sheet metal worker program, at least three other labor organizations are considering submitting proposals for their own training programs, according to Cynthia Manning-Dirl, director of the Career Center.

“Other union organizations are recognizing the benefit of offering these pre-apprenticeship programs as feeders to their apprenticeship programs, especially to enhance their diversity recruiting efforts,” she said.

The Heart of Knoxville Career and Resource Center is part of Pellissippi State and operates at the Magnolia Avenue Campus near downtown Knoxville. For more information about this and other Empowerment Zone training projects, contact Cynthia Manning-Dirl at 329-3127.

"Inside Pellissippi" is a bi-monthly electronic publication produced by the Community Relations Office for the faculty and staff of Pellissippi State Technical Community College, 10915 Hardin Valley Road, P.O. Box 22990, Knoxville, Tennessee 37933-0990. All suggestions and comments should be sent to Julia Wood (jwood@pstcc.edu).

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