Collaboration and Innovation Key to Delivering a Trained Workforce for Boeing North Charleston

CHARLESTON, SC – April 13, 2010 – Yesterday partners from across the state came together to celebrate the grand opening of the Boeing North Charleston Training Center on Trident Technical College’s campus.  readySC™, a division of the SC Technical College System, hosted the event which included a ribbon cutting and guided tour of the facility.

The 19,500 square feet training center consists of 13,200 square feet of training space with 6,300 accompanying square feet of administrative space.  The training center will be training as many as 120 employees a day on two shifts and is designed to mirror the work environment training candidates will encounter once they enter the actual Boeing facility.  The training center also includes large test panels of the upper and lower barrel sections of the plane that were donated by Boeing to assist with training simulations. 
 
I’ve had experience with training across many of our facilities and what we have here in South Carolina is by far the best I’ve seen, said Tim Coyle, vice president of the Boeing North Charleston facility.  Boeing prides itself on 96 years of tradition. And, we like to think that we are starting a new tradition here in Charleston — 96 years from now there will be generation after generation of experience building airplanes in South Carolina.

This is a very exciting time and Trident Technical College is pleased to be part of this partnership with Boeing and readySC™, said Dr. Mary Thornley, president of Trident Technical College.  It all comes down to jobs and this is an excellent example of collaboration among many different partners to bring jobs to the people of our area.

The founding fathers of readySC™ would be very proud of this event today, said Dr. Barry Russell, president of the SC Technical College System and executive director of readySC™.  Over the past 50 years we have worked with nearly 2000 companies relocating to or expanding in the state and have trained more than 250,000 South Carolinians for jobs in the state. We’ve come a long way since 1961 and it has been a real pleasure working with the team at Boeing North Charleston – it’s a partnership that I’m confident will produce outstanding results for not only Boeing but also for the state of South Carolina.

readySC™, founded in 1961 as part of the SC Technical College System, began working on the Dreamliner 787 project in 2006 and to date has trained 1700 of the nearly 3000 employees at the Boeing North Charleston facility. readySC™ provides at no cost to qualifying companies relocating to or expanding in South Carolina with recruiting and training services.  In order to qualify, companies must be producing new jobs for the state that offer competitive wages and healthcare benefits.

readySC™.  For nearly 50 years, readySC™ has been recognized as one of the nation’s premier economic development training programs. As an integral part of the SC Technical College System, readySC™ helps organizations start-up quickly and efficiently in today’s competitive environment providing custom-designed solutions such as workforce recruiting and testing, curriculum and materials development, innovative training design and delivery and experienced project management throughout the entire process.  readySC™’s services are available to qualifying companies at no charge.  In order to qualify, a company must, through relocation or expansion, be creating new jobs with competitive wages and benefits.  For more information about readySC™, please call us 803.896.5331 or visit our website at www.readySC.org.