STEPS4GROWTH

Announced in a Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, media event featuring U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper and U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, STEPS4GROWTH is an ambitious program intended to deliver training in four sectors of the clean energy economy: Energy Efficiency, Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy, and Green Building Construction. Graduates of the program may enter the workforce in one of many clean energy jobs or continue their schooling. Program participants may come from any degree-seeking science program at North Carolina A&T, or one of the state's community colleges. High school students may also enroll in the program to get a head start on training that will be even more valuable when they enter the workforce. STEPS4GROWTH is first being offered in 17 economically distressed N.C. counties.

Employers who have agreed to participate in the training program must commit to hiring a specified number of its graduates. The first 40 employers to register for the program have already agreed to hire as many as 3,000 graduates in its first four years, and 1,500 a year after that. Employers include such companies as Duke Energy, Piedmont Services Group, Siemens Energy and STRATA Clean Energy.

FUNDING

STEPS4GROWTH was launched with $23.7 million in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce as part of its "Good Jobs Challenge" program. Commerce officials have described the A&T program as a national model, and indeed announced $500 million in national awards from the A&T campus on Aug. 3.

A&T POINT/S OF CONTACT

· Balakrishna Gokaraju, Ph.D., associate professor, Computational Science and Engineering; associate director, Visualization and Computation Advancing Research Center. Email: bgokaraju@ncat.edu Phone: 336-285-3210

· Greg Monty, Ph.D., director, Center for Energy Research and Technology. Email: ghmonty@ncat.edu. Phone: 336-285-4738