Long Beach City College
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Partnerships for Skills Gains Long Beach City College Overview Long Beach City College (LBCC) was founded in Long Beach, California, in 1927. LBCC serves approximately 30,000 full-time students and nearly 1,000 non-matriculating students each year on its two campuses. Its student body reflects LA County’s largely Hispanic, Asian American, and Pacific Islander populations. The mission of LBCC’s Workforce Development division is to offer industry-recognized train- ings and certifications to prepare students for local in-demand occupations.“The goal of our department is to help make sure that the workforce in our region has the skills they need to do the jobs they have now and prepare for the economy of the future,” says Dana Friez, the Workforce Development division’s training manager. “Wherever there is shifting technology, training will be required. We want to partner with businesses so that they can stay ahead of these shifts and be ready for what comes next.” One of LBCC’s key training projects targets the region’s alternative fuels for the auto indus- try. LBCC has formed a consortium with three other community colleges to offer new and incumbent worker training funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC), which sub- sidizes training in the state’s alternative energy sector through California’s Employment Training Panel (ETP). Training “With the closing of technical programs and automotive high schools in LA County and new technology tied to a growing use of alternative fuels, there is an ever-widening [talent] pipe- line gap in the auto industry,” Friez says. “LBCC is able to approach businesses with CEC funds as a way to create opportunities that are low-cost for the businesses, good for work- ers, and allow entry-level employees to move into higher-paying technical positions.” LBCC sits on the board of the Southern California Regional Transit Training Consortium, and works closely with the Municipal Equipment Maintenance Association—which services all public transit fleets in the region—to design training programs for both prospective and incumbent workers in technical positions within the alternative fuels sector. LBCC faculty provide the customized trainings, most of which are held at the LBCC workforce develop- ment center, though LBCC can also arrange for on-site trainings as needed. LBCC has developed a special training partnership with Long Beach Fleet Services, which oversees the city’s public-transit fleet. Long Beach Fleet Services approached LBCC to develop a 40-hour course to help its employees pursue certification in compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel cylinder safety, for career paths as safety inspectors for the city’s alternative fuel fleet. “The city of Long Beach does all their fleet maintenance in-house—everything from working on the golf carts that meter maids use to maintaining the helicopters for the police department,” Friez says. “As a result, they need a wide variety of training for their workforce. As our partnership with them has grown, we’ve become their go-to training Partnerships for Skills Gains provider for everything from highly technical safety training to basic welding skills. They trust that we will figure out how to get their employees the skills they need.” Once employees become certified safety inspectors, they receive a promotion and pay increase. Funding CEC funds are distributed to LBCC by El Camino College, which acts as the fiduciary agent for the regional community college consortium. Each college in the consortium receives approximately $450,000 annually to support trainings for careers in alternative fuels. Employers that access these trainings agree to pay their workers during training time. LBCC also contracts directly with employers to design and deliver customized training pro- grams. Direct contracts with employers generate approximately 40 percent of the revenue for LBCC’s Workforce Development division. The CNG safety training is funded by both the city of Long Beach and CEC funds. Goals, Accomplishments, and Lessons Learned “Forming a regional consortium of community colleges who all receive ETP’s CEC funds was a key strategy to optimizing the state’s investment in our region,” says Friez. The colleges meet at the beginning of each year to discuss contracts, potential trainings, and instructor recruitment, and to align curricula. If the consortium determines that a training program is successful, it offers a trainer training course to ensure there are plenty of skilled, special- ized instructors for the region and to mitigate the practice of schools “poaching” instructors from one another. Economic Mobility Corporation 50 Broadway, Suite 1604 New York, NY 10004 @EconMobility www.economicmobilitycorp.org.