March 29, 2024
Business

Bucksport firm gets Limestone contract Company to keep running Job Corps center

LIMESTONE – The Bucksport-based company that has run the local Job Corps center for the past 10 years has been awarded another contract to keep running the facility for the next several years.

Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins indicated in a statement Thursday that Training and Development Corp. has been awarded a $16.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to operate Loring Job Corps Center for the next five years.

Charles Tetro, president and CEO of TDC, said Friday that the contract is a base contract for two years with three one-year extensions.

“We’re delighted,” he said of the contract renewal. “It’s the top performing center in New England.”

There are eight Job Corps centers in New England funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, according to Tetro. There are more than 120 such centers nationwide which provide academic, vocational and life-skills training and residential services to teenagers and young adults.

Training and Development Corp. had run the Penobscot Job Corps Center in Bangor since its inception in 1980 but last fall failed to get its contract for running that facility renewed by the U.S. Department of Labor. The Bangor center now is operated by Career Systems Development Corp. of West Henrietta, N.Y.

In 1996, two years after TDC was awarded a $9.95 million contract to run the then-new Limestone facility, it nearly lost that contract when the quality of the center’s operations declined, a federal official said at the time. Improvements over the last few months of that contract salvaged the arrangement, and TDC’s contract for Loring was renewed in 1998.

The center at the former Air Force base employs approximately 130 people, Tetro has said, and has an enrollment capacity of 380 trainees.

“This money will go a long way in helping the center achieve its mission of helping young people get a better job, make more money, and take control of their lives,” Snowe and Collins indicated in their prepared release.

Tetro said TDC plans to implement a new program at Loring Job Corps Center by which TDC will consult with employers about what kind of training should be offered at the facility.

“It’s a wonderful destination in Maine for youth who want to become qualified for employment,” Tetro said.


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