Port of West St. Mary input session on SLCC school classes held Tuesday

State legislators, parish officials and port commissioners met with South Louisiana Community College executive committee members and local business owners Tuesday at the Baldwin Community Center to discuss possibilities for training offerings at the future SLCC satellite training facility, to be built at the Port of West St. Mary’s industrial park.
Port Executive Director David Allain opened up the floor to comments from attendees, and heard from industrial professions concerning their particular needs, as well as from SLCC administrators.
It was discussed that the facility should be versatile enough to conform to changing training needs, so as to be fluidly utilitarian as local workforce slopes over time.
St. Mary Parish President David Hanagriff suggested that he thought it would be beneficial to consider the possibilities for offered courses in terms of prospective local economic necessity.
“This facility needs to be just as diversified as we want our economy to be,” Hanagriff said.
Between SLCC, the two industrial companies who attended, Diamond Services Corporation and Conrad Shipyard LLC and legislators in attendance, it was discussed that aluminum and steel welding, fitting, technology, crane operation, and manufacturing should be considered as possible offerings.
Soft skills courses were discussed, as well. These are courses in professional disciplines which are non-specialized—i.e. resource management, business ethics, conflict resolution, etc.
Allain said he had drafted support letters to be sent to local professional entities, and would be able to use the returned letters to arrange for the proper descriptions in funding requests for the facility.