Government, business, and community leaders joined officials from Elizabethtown Community and Technical College and BlueOval SK as the ribbon was cut on the college’s new training center located just outside the battery park in Glendale.
ECTC President and CEO Dr. Juston Pate said cutting the ribbon on the facility is a testament to the investment, vision, and commitment of the many community partners that have helped bring the project to fruition.
“It is kind of hard to think that a year ago we were just breaking ground on this,” Pate said. “We were here not even really a full year yet. It was a nice, beautiful, warm day, and we were thinking about what could be, and here just a short year later we’re celebrating what is.”
The ECTC BlueOval SK training center is a 42,000 square foot facility that will host training with a primary curriculum focused on battery knowledge, roles, and skills.
“The ECTC BlueOval Training Center is going to serve trainees who are looking to enter an innovative, high-wage, high-demand career, and at ECTC we could not be more proud to serve such a critical role in preparing those employees for those careers, and we could not be more proud to support the historic investment that BOSK has made in not just Hardin County but the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Pate said.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said the investment of BlueOval SK and the partnerships that help support ECTC will help change lives.
“This is advanced manufacturing with cutting-edge technology, so even with a workforce second to none we knew we would have to rise to the challenge to make sure we could fill all of these good jobs,” Beshear said. “We are facing this head-on with three great Team Kentucky partners: Elizabethtown Community and Technical College, BlueOval SK, and Ford.”
The governor credited BlueOval SK with sparking development in the commonwealth that has revolutionized Kentucky’s image.
“We are the first call that world class businesses are making right now,” Beshear said. “We are the first destination they want to come to. Never a flyover state ever again. Never a place anybody looks down their nose at ever again. We are truly together building a new Kentucky home.”
Beshear recognized the center’s ahead-of schedule completion in part by honoring Trace Creek Construction Vice President David Milam and Superintendent Scott Dalton as Kentucky Colonels. The training center will start onboarding classes in June.
