The Bluegrass Community and Technical College (BCTC) broke ground Monday on a new 78,000-square-foot campus in Georgetown, Kentucky.
The new campus in Lanes Run Business Park will house the college’s Advanced Manufacturing Center for high-skills jobs training, in addition to other traditional academic courses to support higher education in Scott County and the surrounding communities.
The Advanced Manufacturing Technician program at BCTC was developed in partnership with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky in 2006 as a “work and learn” training model to increase the pipeline of skilled workers in Central Kentucky. Currently, 17 companies have joined the Bluegrass Chapter of the Kentucky Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education to help companies adopt new technologies and build a strong talent pool.
“This solid partnership with business sectors to design and offer high-skills training for the workforce is the model of the future. This building is an important part of the program. Our students receive direct support from potential employers to be sure they are ready to contribute on day one,” said Dr. Augusta Julian, BCTC president, in a release on the groundbreaking.
The new Georgetown campus is expected to serve 1,200 students with 12 full-time and 20 part-time faculty members. Courses of study on the campus will include industrial maintenance, electronics, industrial electricity, robotics, mechanical drives, fluid power, machining and welding.
Funding for the new campus was allocated by the Kentucky General Assembly, based on a design funded in 2006 and completed in 2008. A financial investment of $375,000 was made by the Scott County Fiscal Court, with the city of Georgetown assisting in securing funds to construct infrastructure. In addition, in 2014, the governor and the state legislature supported funding of a project to expand production at TMMK, and the training component included the new BCTC campus.
The center is scheduled to open in the spring of 2017.