A $120,000 North Carolina Back-to-Work grant received by Beaufort County Community College last year, funding a new worker-training program, has produced its first graduate.

Amy Wright, a continuing education student at BCCC, has successfully completed the Certified Production Technician program, qualifying her for an entry-level position in the manufacturing sector.

According to Lou Stout, the director of Workforce Initiatives at BCCC, the grant, provided by the North Carolina General Assembly, was meant to offer training to the unemployed, making them more marketable, skilled and ready for employment. The grant paid for registration, coursework and exam costs for students who qualified for the grant scholarship.

“Our first class focused on the Certified Production Technician which is actually a credential through the Manufacturing Skill Standard Council,” said Stout. “We actually enrolled about 19 students and of the 19, Amy is actually the first to complete the class. Since then, we have had a few more to complete the program, but Amy is the first.”

According to a BCCC press release, the Certified Production Technician coursework, an 80-hour continuing education course, involves training recognized by the Council in four critical production areas — Safety, Quality and Continuous Improvement, Manufacturing Processes and Production and Maintenance Awareness. The college selected this program as a starter course, deeming it a fit for the area, through a team effort of workforce development representatives, representatives from NC Works, employers and administration. Since then, the college has added welding.

“We are doing the fast track curriculum through the MSSC,” Stout said. “It’s actually four modules and they take a module — it’s actually kind of a hybrid course where there is classroom instruction as well as online work to do — and then they take a certification exam. If they pass then they get that credential, and they move on to the next module. Each student has the potential of earning six recognized credentials, free of charge through the grant. By passing all four of those, she earned the Certified Production Technician credential. Since then, she has also taken on her Career Readiness Certification. At this point, she has all six credentials.”

Stout said that Wright has applied for jobs with numerous manufacturing businesses in the area. Wright recently toured PAS, a manufacturing facility in Washington, as part of BCCC’s Advanced Manufacturing Programs Week. The facility opened its doors to not only curriculum students, but also to continuing education students, giving them a better understanding of what the company does and a visualization of manufacturing in action. Stout said that Wright’s accomplishment has set her up to enter the manufacturing sector.

“She will be qualified for any entry-level positions at any kind of manufacturing facility,” Stout said. “They would take the training she has had through MSSC and skill her up into their own techniques that they use.”