BUCKHANNON – Pierpont Community & Technology College offers students a variety of programs to excel in their desired careers.

Nancy Ligus, director of Workforce, Continuing Education, and Economic Development at Pierpont Community & Technical College, attended the Nov. 4 Upshur County Commission meeting to discuss their various programs that provide students with an education and certifications, and employers with well-trained employees.

“I’m going to talk about what services we provide through our Center for Workforce Education and at Pierpont because it is different from what you probably think of as the community college offerings,” Ligus said. “Everybody thinks it’s degree programs, certificate programs – things like that – and those are all workforce-based, that’s true, but what we do in workforce development is really engage with employers because we know in the community college system, that employers want to hire people who work and live in their region because that’s one of the ways they know they can retain employees.”

Pierpont is one of the largest community colleges in West Virginia with locations in 13 counties.

“We do utilize the resources of the college, of course, and Pierpont is one of the nine technical colleges in West Virginia, so we have a lot of technical equipment,” Ligus said. “That gives us a really big advantage over other colleges and other training providers that we can use our own equipment and we can purchase equipment.”

They also have a partnership with the West Virginia Office of Apprenticeship.

“There’s been a lot of federal support for apprenticeships, so we work with those folks, and then they’re all regionally divided, so we tried to assist in what they call related technical instruction, which is part of an apprenticeship,” Ligus said. “We really have the opportunity because we are the community college of the region, and we are able to serve the community in many different ways of delivering training.”

Ligus said all the work they do at Pierpont is based on employment and what they call terminal degrees.

“Some of our degrees, of course, transfer into four-year degrees, which is a great opportunity for students,” Ligus said. “It’s the same with our workforce training – training is invaluable – and everything a person does in training through our college and all the community colleges in West Virginia can be articulated into degree programs.”

Pierpont also provides training for non-degree-related professions, such as obtaining emergency medical technician qualifications.

“You don’t need a degree to be an EMT: you need an EMT certification, and we’re going to provide that training, which is 150 hours of training these folks are going to receive and can be applied [in the future] if they want to go on to be a paramedic, which is fantastic,” Ligus said. “They’re not losing any ground; they’re actually investing in themselves and even something as small as a CPR certification can be articulated into academic credit if somebody wants to go into a health sciences program, as an example.”

Ligus also highlighted three state appropriations that were provided to the community college system in West Virginia State Code about 12 years ago.

“The chancellor of the community college system at that time understood what the demand was for employers to get trained skilled workers, but really couldn’t afford to pay for the training themselves all the time, but we still wanted to support that,” Ligus said. “He worked from his position as the chancellor with the state Legislature to come up with these three workforce initiatives and these funds are in the state budget, they’re appropriations and they get reauthorized every year.”

The technical program development allows Pierpont to work with an industry or a specific employer and train potential employees for them.

“This is when we’re working with an industry, like the aviation industry, for example, that’s moving into this community,” Ligus said. “That’s developed primarily through our Academic Affairs side; we work with these industry partners, the community and our staff, and we come up with what skills they need, what technical skills and what related general education skills.”

The Rapid Response Advance grant provides funds to help train people when there is a sudden change in technology.

“When an industry or an employer has an unforeseen change in how they need to operate, and sometimes it’s a sudden change, now they have to train all the people who’ve been working on this machine to this new technology,” Ligus said. “Companies are saying, ‘how are we going to get all these folks trained?’ and now we have to take people off the production floor to be trained and it turns into a real issue for companies, so that funding is for those types of things — to be able to quickly respond to an industry’s need.”

The Learner Program provides funding to permit students to work as paid interns.

“This is really close to my heart; I thought this was such a win-win for employers and students,” Ligus said. “This program allows students to work as a paid intern for a company associated with the work they’re being trained to do in their [Pierpont] program, so we have people in IT programs who are working at a company and going to school, they’re getting paid a very nice wage of $20 an hour and they may be working 20-25 hours a week for an employer, the employer, so they’re getting hands-on experience.”