Workforce Development Center Takes Next Step in Fort Valley

FORT VALLEY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Central Georgia Tech students who live in Peach County will be able to work a little closer to home. Peach Board of Commissioners met Tuesday night to clear the next hurdle to build a workforce development center.

Shovels aren’t in the dirt yet, but plans are coming together in Fort Valley.

“We had made a bid for this thing 4 or 5 years ago and it got shot down, right at the last minute with a bunch of budget cuts. We’re tickled it got a second chance, and now we’re actually going to build it,” Martin Moseley, Commission Vice Chair, said.

He said bids for a construction firm to get started on the workforce development center have been collected.

The center is a partnership between the county and Central Georgia Technical College, increasing the school’s umbrella over middle Georgia.

“Right after we announce the winner of that bid, I think we’ll have 60 days to do the county’s part which is preparing the foundation and some of the site work,” Moseley said.

County officials have already decided where they want the Workforce Development Center at the Industrial Park in Fort Valley.

“We feel like we have a big draw of students there and a definite need in the community to provide technical training,” Dr. Joan Thompson, the Vice President of Satellite Operations at the college said.

She said the center could provide programs like a truck driving training course, which could play big as plans for the port widening project in Savannah start to become a reality.

“It’s just a great building point for us to partner with another community and to have a presence in that community in order to serve the residents there,” Thompson said.

A presence, Vice Chairman Moseley hopes to increase business in Peach County.

“We can train the people right there, right across the street that kind of thing,” Moseley said.

Dr. Thompson says the center will also allow students to get the general education courses they need to transfer to associate degree level programs.

She also thinks teaching jobs will open up at the center as well.