MOULTRIE — Last Tuesday, SRTC broke ground on the site of what will be the new Technical and Industrial Building, at the Moultrie Veterans Parkway campus.
The 72,116 square foot building will house the Air Conditioning Technology, Automotive and Collision Repair, Carpentry, Diesel Equipment Technology, Electrical Systems Technology, Industrial Systems Technology, and Welding and Joining Technology programs.
Attendees gathered under a tent at the site for the groundbreaking ceremony, which included remarks from SRTC affiliates, elected officials and a keynote address from Technical College System of Georgia Commissioner Greg Dozier.
Mayor Bill McIntosh welcomed the group with, “We’re so blessed with having this facility for so long in Moultrie and Colquitt County. I want to welcome all our distinguished guests who are with us this morning. We’ve got a great crowd of all our visiting folks and our local folks.”
He also said that this was just the continuation of a great story in the community and the growth of the college has been phenomenal.
“Today marks not just the groundbreaking of a new building but a milestone in the history of Southern Regional Technical College,” said Dawn Johns, chair of the SRTC Board of Directors.
She also said that she took immense pride in how SRTC has continued to be a beacon of hope and opportunity for countless individuals striving to attain the skills and knowledge that are essential for success.
“As we break ground on this new technical and industrial building, we are reaffirming our commitment together to closing the skills gap and meeting the workforce needs of our region,” Johns said.
President of Southern Regional Technical College Jim Glass then recognized dignitaries in the audience and thanked his staff and board of directors.
Glass said this has been 21 or 22 years in the making and he thanked al the entities and people who had contributed to bringing the project to fruition.
“Your contributions have been invaluable in shaping the design, the construction and financing of this state-of-the-art facility,” he said.
Glass said in closing, “We don’t apologize for our mission. Or mission is workforce development. and I’ll tell y’all we do a doggone good job of it and I’m so proud of this day.”
State Sen. Sam Watson said in his remarks, “I was thinking as a small business owner in this community and a farmer in this community, we all need employees and we all need a workforce.”
As far as the technical aspect and all of the professions that Glass had mentioned earlier, he said, he’s had to call every single one of those this week and it was only Tuesday and not even lunch yet.
“So that’s how important this facility is to all of us whether you’re a business owner or just a home owner and you need these type of people to come help you,” he added.
Watson also thanked Gov. Brian Kemp for his support on the project and his willingness to sit down and talk with them about building the new facility.
State Rep. Chas Cannon spoke briefly, saying that the one thing that he wanted to highlight about the building was the importance of training and skills development.
He then listed the programs that would be taught in the facility.
“Future students of this building will be your beneficiaries,” he said.
Commissioner Dozier started his keynote address with, “I thought, so far, all of our speakers have hit, really, the same theme and I’m gonna hit it as well because I couldn’t be more proud of what the Technical College System of Georgia represents.”
He said that their mission was to recruit and grow a globally competitive workforce.
“Our vision is to make sure every citizen in this state has the opportunity for economic prosperity,” he said.
He said the groundbreaking represented the students that were coming out, the instructors that were teaching the skills and the industries that were providing the jobs.
Dozier said, “When you think about changing lives and leaving legacy, I can’t think of anything different than giving someone the ability to earn a living wage and make a difference in their community and give back.”
He said that across the technical college system in Georgia, there was a high graduation rate in spite of the pandemic, and the enrollment rate did not decrease as much as in other states, which are still struggling.
“When you look at where we are today, those decisions, those tough operational decisions, by leaders in local communities and on the state level, position Georgia to have the real workforce of the future. and as a result, we’ve been blessed in the system to really have enrollment growth that’s unprecedented,” he said.
Dozier said that Georgia’s colleges, communities and industries were making sure that those students, coming out with a skill, have a job waiting for them that’s high-demand and high-pay.
He said the Technical and Industrial Building project was done during a time that they were seeing enrollment challenges, at a time when they weren’t really sure what was going to happen at the end of the pandemic.
He thanked everyone that helped make the project possible and saw that the pandemic was a short-lived period and made sure the industries that were moving to Georgia had a workforce.
“We need these facilities to train the future workforce. So, I’m as excited as anybody down here because this impacts this area but also sets the tone for the state,” Dozier said.