On July 27th, Portland Community College’s new president, Mark Mitsui, visited Newberg to with his team to better determine Career and Technical Education needs for employers around Chehalem Valley. As with the other PCC/OMIC visit, we began the tour at the George Fox University College of Engineering including a tour of the Klages Engineering Innovation Center. From there, we went the ChehalemVIA where Board Chair Julie Marshall gave an overview of the accelerator, then Fidgetech, A.R.E. Manufacturing, the Chehalem Valley Chamber of Commerce, and Newberg High School gave updates related to area CTE programs.
The next stop was lunch at the Allison hosted by Austin Industries. We assembled over a dozen local business executives along with community representatives from the City and County to have a 2 hour round table discussion about skills gaps related to local industry hiring needs. The discussion supplemented a Quarterly Gap Analysis provided by the Chamber of Commerce. All of this information provided to PCC so that they can better determine programming at the PCC Newberg Center.
President Mitsui’s and team’s visit concluded with a tour of A-dec showcasing their incredible manufacturing and product quality capabilities.