New hires at Wacker Chemical in Bradley County will receive the bulk of their training at Chattanooga State Community College as part of a partnership between the German company and the local two-year school.
The arrangement represents a multimillion-dollar investment by the polysilicon manufacturer in equipment and facility improvement at the college. Wacker officials confirmed the partnership but declined to discuss a dollar amount or other specifics.
Chattanooga State President Jim Catanzaro said Wacker’s “significant investment” is confirmation the school is meeting business and industry needs.
“We have been entrusted yet again to prepare a work force for a world-class company making a $1 billion investment in Chattanooga,” Catanzaro said. “I think it’s extraordinary.”
The community college also has a contract with Volkswagen to train employees for its $1 billion plant, which is expected to begin production in early 2011 at Enterprise South and employ 2,000 people.
“This is just another example of how Chattanooga State is stepping up to the plate and offering high-quality training for the businesses moving into the area,” said Jim Barrott, vice president of technology at the school.
The Wacker plant in Bradley County is on track to open in 2014 and initially will create between 500 and 600 jobs, officials said. The company’s largest plant in Germany employs 10,000 people.
Employees will need extensive lab training to work at the Wacker plant, which produces polycrystalline silicon, an element used to create solar panels.
A training facility will be put into the building Chattanooga State plans to purchase from Olan Mills next year. On Thursday, the Tennessee Board of Regents approved a $9 million state grant to help the school purchase the 15-acre Olan Mills property adjacent to the campus on Amnicola Highway.
The state grant was supplemented with $3 million from Wacker and $3.5 million from Chattanooga State, according to Board of Regents documents.
The 186,000-square-foot building expected to house Wacker training on the Olan Mills property will include at least two state-of-the-art chemistry labs, officials said.
“Now we will have the absolute finest environment for teaching chemistry,” Catanzaro said.