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The college offers a number of Occupational and Continuing Education Services, including Teleconference Workshops, Computer Training, and a variety of specialized programs designed to enhance an individual’s employability, to help him or her learn a new career, to establish a pattern of growth and stability in business and industry, and to help individuals stay abreast of trends in their chosen field. These programs may be subdivided as follows:

Small Business Center

�鶹��Ƶ’s Small Business Center (SBC) began operations on September 6, 1998. The center was established to provide McDowell County with its first comprehensive small business development and assistance program.

The mission of the SBC is to train, counsel, develop and provide needed services for small businesses and their owners. As part of its provision of services, the SBC will attempt:

• To operate as an information service on small business issues and concerns.
• To coordinate the referral of small business owner/managers to acquire legal sources for in-depth assistance, counseling and financial assistance.
• To assist in the preparation of business plans, loan packages and research projects related to small business growth and operation.
• To provide limited tax and accounting services for sole proprietorship and partnership businesses.
• To seek out information and assist in loan package preparation involving Federal and State financing programs for small business owners.
• To deliver one-on-one business counseling.
• To assist small business owners with marketing and management problems.
• To offer seminars/workshops in timely topics of interest to the small business owner.
• To offer a resource library of books and videos to be checked out by clients at no charge.

New and Expanding Industry

The categorically funded program is a customized training service for new employees of a new or expanding company to help meet is immediate manpower needs and to encourage each industry` to develop a long-range training program of its own to satisfy its continuing replacement and retraining needs.. The NEIT program, begun more than 30 years ago, was the nation’s first initiative to link skills training to industrial development. State funds are allocated on a project-by- project basis to pay for essential training costs, including an instructor’s wages and travel, material development (shared with the company), video training tapes, an allowance for non- salvageable production materials and the cost of a temporary training facility, if needed.

Focused Industrial Training (FIT)

The Focused Industrial Training program was started in November 1995. FIT provides funds for specific “focused” training, targeted to workers employed in industrial-type occupations and the traditional trades. Examples of what FIT can do for an industry are:

• Pay an instructor to train employees, in class or on the job, who have gaps ins kill levels due to cross-training needs, technological changes or expanding industry demands; and
• Pay in instructor to train as few as one or two people – if that is the need.

Occupational Industry Training

�鶹��Ƶ conducts in-plant courses to assist manufacturing, service and/or governmental organizations with in-service training of their employees. In-plant training is defined as an occupational extension course that meets the following conditions:

• Training shall occur in the facilities or at the site in which the organization normally operates.
• Enrollment shall be limited to the employees of the organization in which the training occurs; trainees may be newly-hired employees who need entry level skills or existing employees who, due to documented changes in job content, need up-grading or retraining.
• Training may partially be conducted at the employee’s assigned work station firuing normal working hours.
• Training shall be directly related to job skills.

Examples of types of training offered to industry include: Statistical Process Control, Total Quality Management, Industrial Sewing, Weaving, Mold Line Training, Forklift Licensure, Blueprint Reading, Measuring Instruments, Metric System, Mathematics, Hydraulics and Pneumatics, Maintenance Mechanics, Industrial Safety, Fire Brigade Training, Upholstery, Technical Writing, Communication Skills, Furniture Making, Furniture Framing, Fixer Training, etc.

Companies’ officials who desire this type of training for their employees should contact MTCC for more information.

Management Development Training

MTCC offers several different training options concerning Management Development. The college has certified instructors available in areas such as: McGraw-Hill Supervision Training, Zenger Miller Management Training, Deming Quality Control Training, and the latest innovations in Total Quality Management.

Apprenticeship Training

If a system of “learning by doing” under the guidance of “master craftsmen” has endured for over 4,000 years, the system undoubtedly contains basic qualitative factors for our contemporary society. These factors should be identified clearly and implemented properly where such training is needed.

North Carolina is requiring increasingly greater numbers of highly trained men and women to keep pace with our rapidly changing economy. New demands on the abilities and experience of workers, who need wider training because of changing methods, materials and technology, call for a new look into educational methods. Apprenticeship is an effective means for a young person to develop formal skills. As such, it makes a major contribution to our state’s economic growth.

�鶹��Ƶ can help train an employed apprentice by making available necessary courses, instructors and classrooms for supplemental related instruction.

The main objective for the Apprenticeship Program is to combine 4,000 to 8,000 hours of on-the- job training with a program of formal related instruction through MTCC. The major objective of the related instruction is to teach an apprentice that part of the technical related information pertaining to his/her trade which can best be taught in the classroom. Other objectives include development of an ability to apply technical related information to his or her trade, evolvement of proper attitudes and human relations, and adjustment to social problems encountered in the world of work. The North Carolina Apprentice Council and Department of Labor have mandated that related training will be required of every apprentice.

MTCC has some equivalent courses in the curriculum program that may offer the apprentice an opportunity to acquire an Associate’s Degree at the same time they are completing the Apprenticeship Program.