Richland College Garland Campus is committed to serving the local community through corporate and workforce training, recognizing the importance of building sustainable community partnerships to provide customized training that is beneficial to both employers and their employees. One of the ways Richland College Garland Campus shows its appreciation to its partners is by recognizing local companies with Corporate Services’ Partnership Awards.
The top three words we hear from employers is ‘workforce, workforce, workforce’,” said Konley Kelley, Richland College Garland Campus director of corporate and community relations. “The greatest assets our clients have are their employees. We are privileged to provide these employees training options and solutions that meet their needs. The Partnership Awards are both a recognition and a ‘Thank you’ from the college for this relationship that we value.”
The Partnership Awards were established to meet a “client recognition” goal. Companies are nominated by Richland College grant coordinators and staff. The review committee for these awards is comprised of college leadership Garland Chamber of Commerce memers.
The DCMA Partnership Award recognizes clients who are part of the DCMA and have met and exceeded performance goals as a partner in a Skills Development Grant from the Texas Workforce Commission. The performance goals are set in the grant application and fulfilled through a working relationship with the college to deliver an agreed number of classes for grant-eligible participants.
The Community Partnership Award recognizes clients who have actively worked with the college in areas such as contract/company-sponsored training, apprenticeship programs and the hiring of students from the Workforce Training programs at the Garland Campus. These companies typically send staff to present to students in the Workforce Training programs and participate in job fairs and career guidance.
More than 200 chamber members were hosted at this year’s banquet. Rose Galloway, associate vice president of workforce and continuing education at Richland College, was honored as the incoming chairwoman of the board for the chamber. Also at the event, Ron Clark, vice president for business services at Richland College, presented Epiroc Drilling Solutions with the DCMA Partnership Award, and he presented General Dynamics Ordinance and Tactical Systems with the Community Partnership Award. These awards recognized the significant training investment each company provided to their employees and their support of programs at Richland College Garland Campus.
“We are very proud to have received this award,” said Tanya Tyler, human resources manager for Epiroc Drilling Solutions, who accepted the award alongside Karine Dubois, vice president Human Resources for Epiroc. “Epiroc Drilling Solutions strives to be a company that values the knowledge and development of our employees. Partnering with the Garland Campus for trainin
g has been invaluable to us as an organization and in our efforts to have the best trained workforce around!”
Epiroc Drilling Solutions received this award for its participation in a Richland College Garland Campus Skills Development Fund grant. The company providing training to 108 Epiroc employees, including 79 new employees, which far exceede
d grant projections. Epiroc received classes in electrical basics and troubleshooting, forklift certification, MSSC certification, 5S, root cause analysis, lean six sigma, project management, CPR and leadership training.
“Garland Campus has been a great partner for us when it comes to training our employees,” added Tyler. “Not only through the state grant, but also in scheduling classes onsite at our facility or at Richland’s main campus whenever we need them, which has been incredibly helpful in training our employees. The Richland employees we work with, like Ric Guerrero, are very flexible and responsive to our needs as an organization.”
General Dynamics Ordinance and Tactical Systems participated in grant training in 2017-18 and used Richland College Garland Campus for contract training in arc flash, train the trainer, coaching millennials and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing. In addition, General Dynamics is the first DCMA company to participate in a registered DOL apprenticeship program in manufacturing, a project for which Garland Campus is providing technical training. Craig Conner accepted the award on behalf of General Dynamics during the ceremony.
In addition to these awards, Kelley, who was last year’s Leadership Garland Distinguished Leader Award recipient, presented this year’s Distinguished Leader Award to Garland Fire Marshall Mike Van Buskirk.
“The Garland Campus is here to serve the community and its companies, many of which are valued manufacturing companies in the Dallas County Manufacturers’ Association and the Garland area,” said Kelley. “Whether the company or organization dedicates time for employees to train on a grant or sponsor training, the college is proud to serve and help keep this economy growing.”
Tyler added, “As an organization, we believe that training is an integral part in having a high-performing workforce. We have company goals and standards as far as the minimum number of training hours every year for each employee, and Richland has been incredibly helpful over the years in accomplishing that goal. We look forward to partnering with Richland in the future to continue to provide high quality training for our employees for many years to come!”
For more stories about exceptional experiences at Richland College, visit our online newsroom at http://rlc5.dcccd.edu/media.