Take Advantage of Government-funded Pro/ENGINEER Training

by Todd Piccuillo, National Training Associates

Did you know that since 1999, nearly 100 companies and 400 dislocated or unemployed engineers and designers have used over $7 million in state and federal grants for Pro/ENGINEER training? It’s true, and if you or your employer haven’t yet benefited from government training dollars, PTC and its network of training partners want to help.

Government training incentive programs can benefit both employed and unemployed members of the PTC/USER community. Funding falls into two categories—grants to businesses to support training for existing  or “incumbent” workers, and individual training vouchers for unemployed or “dislocated” workers.

Incumbent Worker Programs

PTC’s involvement with government training grants began in 1999, when a handful of customers in New Jersey contacted the software company with information about a state program to help manufacturers offset training costs. After some additional research, PTC’s local sales team confirmed that New Jersey indeed had a training grant program for manufacturers—with an astonishingly large budget of over $30 million a year!

PTC was advised by the US Department of Labor to contact Rutgers University for assistance with grant writing and administration. Working closely with Rutgers, within six months PTC had successfully secured a $1 million grant from New Jersey’s Office of Customized Training for a consortium of 15 customers within the state. The funding, which covered the training of over 200 workers, helped these companies with the rollout of Pro/ENGINEER 2001. PTC again partnered with Rutgers in 2001 on another nearly $1 million consortium—this time including 20 companies and 200 workers.  

After its initial success in New Jersey, PTC created a department in 2000 within its Global Services operations dedicated entirely to identifying and investigating state and federal training grant opportunities for its US customer base. Management of this effort, known as the Government Funding Initiatives, was then shifted to National Training Associates (NTA) in 2003. In just four years, PTC’s and NTA’s efforts have helped nearly 100 companies in 14 states—Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas—secure training grants.

In addition to these state-funded grants, several of PTC’s larger customers—including Motorola, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics—have participated in worker training programs sponsored by the US Department of Labor.

Important to note is that worker training programs vary widely from state to state. In fact, over a dozen states offer little or no funds at all. And like most government programs, incumbent worker training initiatives can also change from year to year. Budgets rise and fall, funding guidelines and priorities shift, and application processes can be altered—all on the basis of bureaucratic whim and legislative changes.

Dislocated Worker Programs

With the slow recovery in the high-tech manufacturing sector, government attention and resources have now focused on assisting the unemployed with career training. Today, several federal government initiatives fund high-tech training and career retraining for out-of-work or dislocated individuals.

Together, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Trade Adjustment Act (TAA) provide over $25 billion each year for career retraining programs in every state. Under the WIA, any displaced worker can receive up to $7,500, depending on state and county guidelines. The NAFTA and TAA programs award up to $10,000 in funding for individuals who have lost their jobs because of foreign competition or the shifting of business to Canada or Mexico. In addition, President Bush has proposed that Congress set aside $3.6 billion for Personal Re-Employment Accounts, which would provide displaced workers with an another $3,000 for retraining.

To participate in these programs, training providers must apply for WIA certification from their respective state governments, and eligible trainees must choose training programs from a state-approved list. At present, Pro/ENGINEER training has been approved in Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio, and South Carolina. Several other states—Delaware, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin—are expected to become eligible to provide Pro/ENGINEER training within the next three months.

To find out more about government-funded training programs in your area, please contact Todd Piccuillo at 800-782-0050 or tpiccuillo@ntainc.net. Todd is the former Director of Government Funding Initiatives at PTC and now manages all Pro/ENGINEER-related grant activities at NTA.