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HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY 6, 2022 13 When choosing a trusted business advisor, relationships matter. uhy-us.com | 860-935-6132 CONTACT US TODAY! College recruitment Lavoie said the state's universities and community colleges also have crucial roles to play in developing the manufacturing workforce. Community colleges in particular have beefed up their manufacturing training programs, offering every- thing from 12-week certificates to two-year degrees. Laura McCarthy, director of the Academic Success Center at Northwestern Connecticut Community College (NCCC), said manu- facturing program- ming has become so popular at the school that it often has a student waitlist. McCarthy also works with the Northwest Regional Work- force Investment Board, an organi- zation that focuses on developing a skilled workforce to support busi- nesses in northwest Connecticut. "Litchfield County has 350 manu- facturers, and we have well over 1,000 job openings, a lot of them in the manufacturing sector," McCarthy said. "But it's hard for people to come across them. It's easy to see that McDonald's is hiring, but it's hard to know that (DRT Power Systems) is also hiring." McCarthy said NCCC offers for-credit courses that can stack toward an associate degree in addition to certification programs. Students span in age from a typical Laura McCarthy OK AY Industries President and CEO Jason Howey said his company has between 15 to 20 open positions, but finding skilled workers has been a challenge. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED college-age person to older adults wanting to gain more training for their careers, or find a new manufacturing career altogether. Manufacturing courses at NCCC include blueprint reading, introduction to CNC and other specialized topics. She said the school recently had to hire another instructor because of the demand for programming. "It's a great opportunity for not just the career changers, but for people to access a college education who didn't think that college education was for them and they went directly to the workforce," McCarthy said. CCAT is helping with recruitment efforts too. The organization in January launched its engineering internship program that aims to further establish a student-to-em- ployer manufacturing pipeline. Through the program, manufac- turing and technology companies can submit their summer internship positions to be promoted online, and college students can then submit their resumes with participating companies and/or apply directly for paid internships. The program is open to all small and medium-size manufacturers and college students in the state. Compa- nies with fewer than 300 employees that hire engineering interns can apply for a matching wage subsidy grant and receive up to $7,000 for two qualified interns, CCAT said. The new program, which ran on a pilot basis in 2022, is underwritten by the state Department of Economic and Community Development's Manufacturing Innovation Fund. Garofano said almost 20 compa- nies participated in the program last year but CCAT's hoping to expand it in 2023. Burke Aerospace in Farm- ington, Microboard in Seymour, and PTA Plastics in Oxford all partici- pated last year, to name a few of the companies. Garofano said she hopes the website can be a one-stop-shop for companies looking for interns and students looking to get hands-on experience. "We have companies that partici- pated last year, we have new compa- nies coming into the fold, so we just wanted to have a centralized place that is now our website," Garofano said.