Dan Smith
VWCC Fralin Center
Virginia Western Community College is amplifying one of its core missions: Training skilled, blue-collar workers for immediate—and often lucrative—employment. The intensified training comes at a time of need for the auto industry.
VWCC’s School of Career and Corporate Training and its School of Business, Trades and Technology have collaborated with the Berglund Automotive group to expand its automotive service technician program. The updated program, beginning in January, 2020, will improve employees’ skills as general service technicians with courses over as little as five weeks, most classes offered in the evenings or Saturday mornings.
The need for these improved and updated skills is reaching a crucial point nationally with a lot of the skilled workers moving into retirement age. Roanoke had 847 service technician jobs in 2018, a quarter higher than the national average, but there were 52 job openings a month on average with median hourly pay of $19.35.
The classes will be held at a new location on Franklin Road, donated by Berglund at one of its facilities. The offering includes standard classes, in addition to new entry-level and continuing education workshops.
“In our business, we have a tough time filling all of the automotive technician opportunities that we have,” says Berglund President William Farrell. “It has become such a specialized field. We felt that this was the best way for us to give back to the whole community – to grow a regional workforce not only for us, as an automotive group, but for all of our automotive colleagues in the Valley. We are glad to be a part of growing automotive opportunity for the entire region.” Farrell is the treasurer for the VWCC Educational Foundation Board of Directors.
Says Dr. Milan Hayward, Vice President of the School of Career and Corporate Training, “Students will acquire the skills they need to succeed and find mobility across many potential employers in our region.”
About the Writer:
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).