school the company offers in Nashville,
TN. Through a cooperative agreement
between the company and college, Core
10 is working to create a software train-
ing facility—Newforce West Virginia—
where students will be able to earn a
specialist certificate in coding.
“What we’re hearing from employers
is that they need graduates with practical
technology skills, not just IT degrees,”
says Tucker. “President Keith Cotroneo
at Mountwest is working with Core 10
to essentially create a coding boot camp
with the goal of producing a local pool
of highly trained coders. That would be a
real incentive for tech companies looking
to locate or hire here.”
Through a $4 million U.S. Depart-
ment of Labor (DOL) grant, BridgeValley
Community & Technical College in South
Charleston is also working to transform
the regional economy from being coal
dependent to technology based. By tar-
geting advanced manufacturing and in-
formation technology programs and
leveraging past DOL investments, Bridge-
Valley’s TechHire program is engaging
sector employers to offer the training
students need to be successful.
“I can’t emphasize enough how valu-
able programs like TechHire are,” says
Tucker. “People who have lost their jobs
are getting a second chance, and our econ-
omy is evolving and becoming stronger
at the same time.”
With a dedicated focus on technical
skills training, community and technical
colleges in West Virginia are also en-
gaged in the West Virginia Department
of Commerce’s Apprenticeship in Motion
program, which is increasing workplace
training opportunities across the state.
Through the Governor’s Guaranteed
Workforce Program, the state is also
offering wage stipends for businesses so
they can upskill their current employees,
and the state’s community and technical
colleges are providing that training.
“Through programs like these, we’re
seeing people who never thought they
could go to college do just that,” says
Tucker. “The Community and Technical
College System has worked with more
than 700 employers across the state to
help build their workforce, and graduates
from many of our programs have a 100
percent placement rate. We’re focusing
so much of that work in a very dedicated
way on technology skills because we know
those fields truly represent the future of
the Mountain State.”
KeyLogic Systems and
Bravo Consulting Group Form
Partnership Through the
Mentor-Protégé Program
KeyLogic Systems, a leading professional
services and engineering firm, and Bravo
Consulting Group, a leading technology
consulting firm, have announced the for-
mation of a new partnership through the
Small Business Administration’s (SBA)
Mentor-Protégé Program. The partner-
ship will enable them to combine their
complementary technical capabilities
and long-standing culture of high per-
formance to strengthen their ability to
deliver unique solutions that address the
evolving needs of federal agencies.
“With a shared focus on delivering
quality services for our customers, Key-
Logic is excited to join forces with Bravo
to integrate our engineering and manage-
ment strengths,” says Jon Hammock,
KeyLogic’s president and CEO. “Key-
Logic and Bravo share many of the same
characteristics, as we view problems
WWW.WVEXECUTIVE.COM
FALL 2018
83