The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) announced on Wednesday, May 21, that a collaborative Colorado Broadband Initiative training program has resulted in successful completion by 100 percent of its participants, with several graduates in two southwest Colorado communities already securing employment, and additional direct hires underway.
The pilot program was the first of its kind in Colorado and has established a new model for replication throughout the state, linking local broadband industry needs to state-level resources and industry partners to provide skills training and develop the needed broadband workforce.
The Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation (PSCDC) led the pilot project locally, collaborating with the Colorado Broadband Office (CBO), the Colorado Rural Workforce Consortium within the CDLE, and the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) to implement the broadband training initiative.
The PSCDC, which covers all of Archuleta County, was selected for the pilot broadband training initiative last November due to its successful workforce development and youth summer work programs over the last three years.
“This was truly a Cinderella story of everyone working together to contribute a little piece of magic at the eleventh hour to make this pilot successful,” Emily Lashbrooke, executive director of the PSCDC. “The participants were fully committed to the two-week intensive training, as was every organization that funded, subsidized and secured equipment, facilitated training and, ultimately, provided jobs.”
In less than five weeks, through the expedited cooperation of multiple organizations, program logistics were finalized, equipment and a training partner were secured, and participants were recruited. SCTE facilitated the full-time, two-week training to 33 participants.
This Broadband Fiber Installer Boot Camp provided intensive, hands-on training designed to equip learners with the skills necessary for SCTE’s BFI professional certification. Every participant completed and passed the broadband bootcamp, achieving a 100 percent completion rate for the training.
All 19 participants in Cortez have also taken the BFI exam and secured their broadband fiber installer professional certification. The 14 participants in Pagosa Springs will be eligible to take the BFI exam after completing 120 hours with hands-on experience.
“We are proud to see such a holistically complete success story of a public-private collaboration. To witness it happen within mere weeks from implementation to execution makes this an even more notable accomplishment,” said Joe Barela,executive director of the CDLE. “The efforts behind this inaugural broadband initiative to increase the skilled workforce in two rural communities will not only help to provide reliable fiber internet across southwest Colorado, but will serve as the model of partnership to build and leverage resources to train the broadband workforce for other areas of the state.”
At the time of this report, two participants were hired in Pagosa immediately following the training, with two more pending work experience.
The PSCDC used $50,000 from the Innovation Grant to pay for the training. The local workforce centers in Pagosa Springs and Cortez within the Colorado Rural Workforce Consortium involved ISPs in the area who ultimately hired some of the participants.