Recent graduate of Germanna’s Amazon Web Services program Barbara Powers hugged instructor Ben Sherman during the program’s graduation ceremony.
Powers said that after 39 years as a mom, "This is the first thing I've done for myself."
Germanna's AWS training is engaging students of all ages and backgrounds.
The AWS Information Infrastructure Pre-Apprenticeship (i2PA) is a four-week program providing hands-on instruction that focuses on electrical, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), mechanical, and data center operations.
Students are given an overview of each of these disciplines with the intention that they will select a specific pathway to pursue after the program ends, according to Tina Lance, Dean of Business and Workforce Development at Germanna.
"With data centers coming into our service region," Lance says, "it's really important that we provide training to support the labor that not only builds them, but also maintains them. In order to increase awareness of data center-labor needs, Amazon Web Services partnered with Germanna to create a pre-apprenticeship course that provides an overview of each of these disciplines."
Twenty AWS program students graduated on Friday, November 8, in a ceremony at Germanna's Fredericksburg Area Campus in Spotsylvania.
The students trained in the Germanna AWS program are selected and compensated by Amazon.
Germanna’s partnerships with companies like AWS is key to staffing these facilities, Lance said.
In March, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin called Amazon Web Services’ $35 billion investment in Spotsylvania, Stafford, Caroline, and Louisa counties “transformational,” adding that related community college training will prepare local people of all ages for high-paying jobs.
AWS will invest the $35 billion over the next 15 years to fill high-tech jobs, many of which pay well without a college education.
The U.S. Department of Labor has given Germanna, along with Laurel Ridge, Northern Virginia, Piedmont Virginia, Rappahannock, Southside, Brightpoint, and Reynolds Community Colleges a total of $5 million in grants to provide training for students who will fill jobs at AWS. Germanna will receive one of three project managers, along with equipment and retrofitting of current facilities. The grant also funds licensing for the training for the next three years as part of the U.S. Department of Labor Building Pathways to Infrastructure Grant, which provides fiber optic training to students who will help install cables that transmit data to the new AWS data centers.
Gov. Youngkin states, "What's happening in our community college system is literally at the foundation of workforce development... we're blurring the lines with K through 12. We're blurring the lines in higher ed, with people who are suddenly, at the age of 50, saying, ‘Listen, I'm going to do something else and find a pathway to get there.’ That's what our community college system can do. It is a place to build bridges. It's a place where opportunities are created. Germanna is literally the foundation for our future’s workforce.”