Chattanooga State Community College has provided truck driver and diesel mechanic courses for decades, but as Chattanooga’s growing “freight alley” boosts the labor demands for workers in the logistics industry, the college is preparing to shift into a higher gear in its training programs.
“We’ve seen the growth in transportation and logistics and we know with the supply chain challenges for workers in our community we needed to help address this need,” Rebecca Ashford, president of Chattanooga State, said in a recent interview on the main campus.
As a transportation hub, seven out of the 11 Chattanooga-based businesses on Inc. magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in America last year were in transportation and logistics. Chattanooga also is home to the nation’s largest woman-owned third-party logistics company, Kenco Logistics, and two of the nation’s biggest trucking carriers – U.S. Xpress and Covenant Logistics.
Last September, Tennessee Board of Regents member Weston Wamp helped organize a meeting among many of Chattanooga’s biggest logistics and trucking company executives to identify ways the college could help meet the skill needs for one of the city’s biggest industries.
(READ MORE: Growth lands two Chattanooga businesses high on Inc. 5,000 list)