NMCC offers hands-on learning

    PRESQUE ISLE – Businesses from New Limerick to Madawaska are turning to the Continuing Education Division at Northern Maine Community College to provide the customized and hands-on training they need for their employees. Offering courses on location at work sites throughout “The County” and on site using the modern facilities on the College campus,  NMCC Continuing Education assists more than 2,000 people annually to upgrade their knowledge base and become more valuable, skilled employees.
    “We work with companies, large and small, as well as with individuals to assure the most appropriate, relevant and effective training is delivered. We tailor our offerings to specific industry needs and work to accommodate the schedules of the employer and employees,” said Leah Buck, assistant dean of continuing education. “We strengthen the labor force and, in turn, help improve the bottom line of the businesses we work with.”
    The list of companies turning to NMCC to meet their training needs over the past year alone reads like a Who’s Who of Aroostook’s leading smaller and larger employers. Among them are McCain Foods, Huber Engineered Woods, MMG, Louisiana-Pacific, Fraser Papers, Fraser Timber Ltd, Irving Woodlands, Mom’s Fudge, Maine D.O.T., Maine Public Service, BurrellesLuce, Connect North America, Pines Health Services, Pattison Sign Group, Mechanical Services Inc., and The Aroostook Medical Center.
    To serve its partner businesses and the community, NMCC Continuing Education offers several options including non-credit workshops, professional seminars, hands-on training, and customized certificate programs consisting of credit classes. In addition, the division is responsible for northern Maine’s only Commercial Truck Driving Academy, and regularly offers personal enrichment classes and special topic courses in areas including computer training, supervisory and customer service skills, health care, as well as an extensive offering of on-line courses.
    NMCC also partners with the Maine Quality Centers, an economic development program which, for qualifying businesses, provides job-specific workforce training for new and expanding enterprises at no cost to the company or its employees. In Aroostook County, since the first joint NMCC/Maine Quality Centers program was initiated in 1997, more than 20 businesses have benefited from training partnership agreements, totaling an investment of more than $1.5 million dollars in the region’s economy and over 1,000 new hires.