Highlight: Muskegon Community College’s Sturrus Technology Center Provides Regional Workforce Development Training, Encouraging Job Creation and American Manufacturing

EDA is proud to fund projects that support the planning and implementation of infrastructure for skills-training centers and related facilities that address the hiring needs of the business community with a specific emphasis on the expansion of apprenticeships and work-and-learn training models. Our presence in U.S. Workforce Development teaches niche skills to American workers, encourages job creation and focuses on manufacturing innovative, high-value products.

In 2015, EDA invested $2.5 million in Michigan’s Muskegon Community College, providing critical funding to transform the former Chronicle Newspaper Building in downtown Muskegon into a cutting-edge workforce training and development center. The 75,000 sq. ft. building is now home to the Sturrus Technology Center, a state-of-the-art workforce development training and business startup community. With so many manufacturing firms in the Muskegon area, the region’s economy relies on access to a skilled workforce.

The applied technology training and workforce programs held at the Sturrus Technology Center uses state-of-the-art equipment to mirror the experiences graduates will have on the job. In addition, the Center includes experiential classrooms, the Muskegon Community College’s Rooks|Sarnicola Entrepreneurship Institute, and a fabrication laboratory. The Lakeshore Fab Lab, as it’s known, is a facility housing more than $500,000 worth of equipment in a space where inventors can invent, businesses can prototype, and children can learn and gain hands-on experience with STEM-based projects.

According to grantee estimates, the EDA-funded Sturrus Technology Center is expected to create nearly 250 jobs as manufacturers grow with confidence in the skills and capacity of the regional workforce.