Hampton’s Thomas Nelson Community College has been a strong partner in workforce development and training on the Peninsula for years. Now, it’s joining with two other community colleges to create a larger regional effort.
Thomas Nelson, Camp and Tidewater community colleges, which together serve 11 cities and four counties, will collaborate to meet the large-scale job training needs of the region’s businesses and industries, announced Glenn DuBois, chancellor of Virginia’s Community Colleges. The new Community College Workforce Cooperative will create a single point of contact to access the workforce training resources.
This shift, said DuBois, “will position us as a dependable partner in advancing the region’s economic development priorities, filling workforce gaps, and making us more accessible than ever to large employers.”
The cooperative will direct and coordinate the job training resources, leveraging facilities, labs, and additional training resources of all three community colleges to address the sizable training needs that exist today in industries like shipbuilding and ship repair. It will also ensure that the colleges are better prepared to meet emerging trends in the region, like the growing alternative energy industry.
