LCC wins $670,000 pulp and paper grant
Thursday, September 2, 2004 7:44 AM PDT
By Tony Lystra
Printable version
E-mail this articleThe National Science Foundation has granted Lower Columbia College $670,000 to train workers for the pulp and paper industry, which is losing ground to more efficient European papermakers, college officials said Wednesday.
The college will use the money to build a $400,000 lab that simulates chemical and computer-driven processes common on the mill floor, said Brendan Glaser, LCC's Dean for Workforce and Continuing Education.
LCC also will form a partnership with local pulp companies and nine colleges nationwide to develop a new curriculum to train workers for an industry that is becoming increasingly high tech, he said.
The new training program will be crucial to create new jobs and help "keep the pulp and paper industry alive and well," said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who attended a roundtable discussion with LCC and industry representatives at the college Wednesday.
LCC officials said their campus is a prime spot to build the program because four major pulp and papermakers operate along the Lower Columbia River
The grant, which will be distributed over four years, comes as local producers lose ground to overseas pulp manufacturers. Those companies, concentrated in northern Europe, use high-tech equipment and employ more experienced workers to run them, industry representatives said.
"We're getting our socks beat by the Scandinavian countries, who require their employees to have two years of education before they can even apply for a job," said Frank Wille, a technical service specialist at Longview Fibre Co., which will participate in the new training program.
"They have a head start on us and it shows in our competitiveness," Wille said. "We're behind the eight ball. ... That's what this is intended to address."
In addition, Glaser said older, experienced workers are expected to retire in waves during the next few years, necessitating new training programs.
"We're anticipating that there's going to be a mass exodus of brain power and skill," he said. "That could really leave us in the lurch."
Local pulp manufacturers such as Longview Fibre and Georgia Pacific will help fund the new lab, which should be mostly completed next year, Glaser said.
Using the Internet, LCC students will be able to operate similar lab at Alabama Southern Community College, he said.
Officials will also develop new curriculum and share it with a newly formed network of institutions, known as the National Pulp and Paper Technology Network. The schools, which also received NSF grants, include the University of Washington, University of Maine, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, and several other community and technical colleges.
And LCC officials plan to educate high school students and faculty about manufacturing jobs, hoping to spark interest in what some consider a dying sector, Glaser said.
The college already runs a pulp manufacturing program, but it caters largely to workers with some pulp experience or industry suppliers who want to learn more about their clients, he said. This new program will offer courses to students new to the pulp business while helping current workers learn new technologies so they can compete with the Europeans.
"We haven't done that really well at all in the U.S.," Wille said.
Although the pulp and paper industry has suffered declines in recent years, Glaser said the new program is timely because the business is on the cusp of recovery.
"We need to do a better job of projecting when things are going to come back online and get the training in place earlier," he said. "That's what we've tried to do with this grant."
Past Month's Most Commented Stories