Enrollment Jumps At Workforce Center Summer Brings 43 Percent Increase In Trainees

Business is booming at the three-year-old North Idaho College Workforce Training Center in Post Falls.

Enrollment jumped 43 percent this summer, compared with just a 2.7 percent increase on NIC’s main campus.

The three-acre site will grow by 10.29 acres over the next four years thanks to property NIC recently bought from the Jacklin Land Co.

And this fall, high school students from Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls and Lakeland will be able to take vocational courses at the training center.

All that growth has center director Robert Ketchum beaming.

“On a typical night during the school year, you can’t find a classroom here,” Ketchum said. “But to be space-challenged is a good thing.”

The $1.4 million, 22,000-square-foot center offers classes for workers who want to upgrade their skills. Employers also can contract with the center for customized training programs.

Kootenai County has sent hundreds of employees to the training center over the past several months to learn to use Microsoft Office software.

“I don’t think we would have thought of doing this large a training without having a facility here,” county administrator Tom Taggart said. “They customized the training to fit what we want. It’s just been real convenient.”

The center also is home to dozens of community education classes, the Small Business Development Center, and a $65,000, state-of-the-art distance-learning classroom with six huge video screens.

“This is where it’s at,” said Barb Chestine, a nursing instructor at the center. “People cannot afford in this day and time to just go to school. You can take care of your family, work and better yourself, and use it as a stepping stone. It’s not like you have to put your entire life on hold while you’re going to school.”

Although training center representatives are some of the first on the scene when a mill or plant shuts down, Ketchum said the center’s primary focus is on employed people.

Unlike NIC’s Coeur d’Alene campus which is funded largely by state and local money, almost 70 percent of the Workforce Training Center’s budget comes from tuition, fees and sales.

“We’re the entrepreneurial college,” Ketchum said.

It’s uncertain how the training center will expand in the future, but it’s in the right place for growth. The center is in the heart of the University of Idaho’s Riverbend campus, a 25-year project slated to begin in 2000 that will greatly increase the university’s presence in North Idaho.

“Most community colleges have some capacity like ours,” Ketchum said. “There’s not another school in the state of Idaho that has a dedicated workforce training center like ours.”