MCC Daily Tribune Archive

VP Biden Praises MCC for Innovative Job-training Programs

In his July 27 remarks about the new Integrated Photonics Institute for Manufacturing Innovation in Rochester, Vice President Biden held up MCC as a model for meaningful collaborations with employers and for job-training programs that align with employment opportunities. Here is an excerpt of his speech:

"18 months ago, in the State of the Union address, the president asked me to come up with a game plan to determine what those jobs are in the future, how folks can get training to fill those jobs and how we can connect the workers, when they get the training, with employers who need their skills.

"The first place I came to visit, as Lovely (Warren) knows, was Monroe Community College right here in Rochester. It was the first visit I made. And the reason I did was -- [applause] let me explain why I did; I'm not just trying to be nice to Rochester -- because the community college has a board made up of a lot of local business people. They had a remarkable program where the students worked directly with over 200 local manufacturers to learn hands-on precision manufacturing skills needed to make it in the optics industry.

"Because of American ingenuity, when Kodak went -- my recollection, don't hold me to this. I thought there was over 30,000 employees roughly; I think it is down to 5,000 or 7,000 now. I don't know what the number is, but what happened is a lot of small outfits broke off.

"But what they (MCC) found out when they went out, they actually went out and surveyed in two counties: What are the needs of these 120 companies engaged in similar work now? What do they need? And so what happened was they came up with a specific list. Employers came in; they said this is what I need people trained in. And Monroe Community College set up a program for six months.

As I met with industry, labor leaders, mayors and governors, the Fortune 500 CEOs, nonprofits, educators all around the country, I often spoke about the example of the program I have seen here in Rochester. And I saw their examples of successful partnerships: business working together with government and academic institutions to train and grow the workforce, and give their employees a shot to move up to actually live a middle-class life."

Click here to watch Vice President Biden's complete speech: https://www.rochesterhomepage.net/story/d/story/vice-president-joe-bidens-complete-speech/76608/1cLVz3yNWkeK0G_rngqHnA

Hency Yuen-Eng
Marketing and Community Relations
07/29/2015