For many job seekers, manufacturing pipeline is a welcome gift

7 Jan 2019


Most of the 18 students in the design engineering class are settled into their seats and working with the NX software when one man wanders in late, looking more dressed-up than most, in a button-down shirt, tie and suspenders.

Instructor Cecil Carter stops to ask, "How was the interview, was it good?" The man replies with a thumbs-up. A woman later walks in, is asked a similar question and nonchalantly replies, "I got it."

Carter doesn't seem to mind the tardiness, because the reason people are late is exactly why they're in this five-week, 150-hour course: to get a job, typically at Electric Boat.

These students were in the ninth cohort of this class. It's one of several courses — all at no cost to enrollees — as part of the Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative that the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board launched in 2016 to teach the skills that employers are seeking.

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