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Officials held a ribbon cutting Friday for the Hugh and Byrnes Young Marine and Petroleum Safety Training Center in Morgan City. The facility is part of South Central Louisiana Technical College’s Young Memorial Campus. The building was made possible by state funding and donations from H&B Young Foundation. (The Daily Review/Zachary Fitzgerald)

Marine center unveiled

Facility will provide industry training for region

Officials formally opened a new multi-million dollar training facility Friday in Morgan City that will serve the local marine and petroleum industries and also train workers around the country.

South Central Louisiana Technical College’s Young Memorial Cam-pus held a ribbon-cutting Friday for Hugh and Byrnes Young Marine and Petroleum Safety Training Center in Morgan City. The center is located at 3225 Youngs Road.

In addition to $3.3 million in state funding, H&B Young Foundation donated five acres of waterfront industrial property and a training pool building with an estimated value of $713,000 in 2014 on which to build the center. Officials broke ground on the center in November 2015.

Marine safety training has been going on in Morgan City over 50 years in various temporary buildings, said Earl Meador, regional director for South Central Louisiana Technical College.

“We finally have a permanent structure,” Meador said.

The entire community helped make the new center a reality. Just two years ago the training center was housed in 14 wooden temporary buildings, he said.

A hundred years ago, the land on which the center stands was the plantation home of Hugh and Byrnes Young and their family, Foundation President Brenda Ayo said.

“Hugh and Byrnes Young were men of vision,” Ayo said. “They went to all the major oil companies that could be found and enticed them to come to Morgan City by giving them 50-year bargain leases.”

The two men formed a foundation solely to benefit Morgan City and its citizens. Over the years, board members have striven to continue the Youngs’ vision by investing in the community, Ayo said.

“It’s not about the building ... it’s about the people that it will just fundamentally change,” said Monty Sullivan, president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System.

Young Memorial has been one of the most productive schools in the nation for issuing short-term certifications, Sullivan said.

More than ever before, employers are focused on skills sets, documenting those skills “and being able to say to an employer, this is what I know I can do for you,” Sullivan said.

“That’s what earns a living for people. That’s what changes households and families,” he said.

System Board Member Vinnie St. Blanc was glad to see the building’s completion and said it will be a valuable asset to the region, especially when the oil and gas industry rebounds.

State Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin, said he fought in 2013 to make sure the Young Memorial project got in a bill to improve facilities in the state’s community and technical college system.

The Young Foundation’s stepped up to provide the matching funds needed for the project, Jones said.

“Ingenuity and the drive and outward thinking that we had that started the oil industry here in Morgan City in 1947 has not gone,” Jones said. “It’s just been transformed to other generations, new generations. And we’re not going to give up.”

Young Memorial is going through a transition phase, and, in July, the campus will become part of South Louisiana Community College. The realignment will allow Young Memorial to offer general education courses that will be transferable to any four-year university in Louisiana, and the campus will eventually offer associate degrees in addition to the technical degrees it already offers.

South Louisiana Community College Chancellor Natalie Harder said college leaders promise to grow what Young Memorial has become and “honor what you have built and the commitment you have to this community.”

ST. MARY NOW

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