ENHANCED BY
Community
Barnhill Contracting Co. and an anonymous corporate donor each donated $25,000 to help fund labs in the new Center for Innovation on the Tarboro campus of Edgecombe Community College. The new facility will focus on advanced manufacturing and is slated to open for classes in 2020.
Local Companies Supporting New ECC Facility through Naming Opportunities
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dgecombe Community College is banking on its new Center for Innovation to help pave the way for the future of skilled manufacturing workers, and local businesses are pitching in. A study by the National Association of Manufacturers’ Manufacturing Institute showed that as many as 2.4 million manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2028, in part because of the lack of skilled workers. The Center for Innovation, a $6.1 million project under construction on the Tarboro campus and projected to open for classes in 2020, will address the local need for more workers who are proficient in leading-edge manufacturing technologies. A majority of the construction and equipment funds are coming from the state, county, and grants from various organizations, such as the Golden LEAF Foundation. Area industries also are playing an important role in helping ECC complete the project. Barnhill Contracting Co. in Rocky Mount and an anonymous corporate donor each donated $25,000 to help fund a hydraulics and pneumatics lab and an electronics lab. The Center for Innovation will house the College’s industrial-related programs, including manufacturing technology, industrial systems technology, and electrical/electronics technology, as well as global logistics and supply chain management. “The donations are helping us outfit the building to ensure we’re doing things in line with industry standards,” says Michael Starling, dean of Business, Industry, and Technologies at ECC . Equipment like oscilloscopes, multimeters, hydraulics and pneumatic training stations, programmable logic controllers, and mechatronics trainers will allow the students to troubleshoot, build, repair, and operate systems that are found in manufacturing settings across the country, Starling explains. “A lot of industries are using these same types of systems,” he adds. “We want to be as close to a real world situation as possible so the students can not only work on the systems, but also troubleshoot and perform maintenance on them.” To learn more about supporting workforce training by making a gift to the College, please contact Lynwood Roberson, executive director of the ECC Foundation, at robersonl@edgecombe.edu or (252) 618-6650. 2019 PRESIDENT’S REPORT
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