The Shadow
On the afternoon of Wednesday, January 31, at approximately 4:30 p.m., Mountain Gateway Community College held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for their new “Career Services Center” located at Warren Hall.
Executive Director for the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce, Teresa Hammond was first to speak at Wednesday’s highly-anticipated event. “We think this is a great opportunity for the community college to celebrate this new addition to the programs and services that they offer here. What a wonderful opportunity to connect the students with employers in the community, employers with students in the community, and help address workforce issues in our area,” Hammond said after a warm welcome.
Other speakers included LewisGale Hospital CEO, Lee Higginbotham, Clifton Forge Mayor Jeff Irvine, Matt Garten, Bryan Thompson of the Alleghany Highlands Economic Development Corporation (AHEDC), President of Mountain Gateway Community College, Dr. John Rainone, Associate Vice President of Mountain Gateway Community College, Dr. Matt McGraw, Covington Mayor Tom Sibold, and a few others. “This is a step in what we need in the Alleghany Highlands,” Tom Sibold said. “We need job training, we need housing, and we need jobs. You can’t do it without the three.”
“College is about partnerships,” Dr. John Rainone began, “and this is another example of partnerships. We can’t make this ‘Career Services Center’ work unless there’s partnerships and partnerships with business and industry are critical.” Rainone then introduced Dr. Matt McGraw to the podium for a few uplifting words. “He [McGraw] had a different role when this was being developed, but now he’s our Chief Workforce Officer,” Rainone said about his colleague.
“It’s a distinct pleasure to open the ‘Career Center’ here at Mountain Gateway Community College after 3 ½ years of planning.This was part of our Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)… We put together a QEP selection team 3 ½ years ago. We created that project; it was very important to the QEP team that we select a topic that was important, that we enhance a service that serves all of our students, whether they’re in the academic programs, workforce solutions programs, technical programs. We needed a service that our alumni could access and that would be beneficial to the community and our employers,” McGraw said during his brief speech.
The “Career Services Center” officially opened moments later after a large group gathered to cut the red ribbon. A few members of the Alleghany Highlands YMCA were in attendance, as well as a few members of the Clifton Forge Town Council which included Town Manager Chuck Unroe and Councilman Benjamin W. “Ben” Nicely.
