BANGOR – For more than 40 years, Eastern Maine Community College has provided opportunities for students to learn new career-enhancing skills. Many EMCC students enroll because they are seeking their first job in a field or because they are dissatisfied with their current employment.

More recently, EMCC has extended its resources to a new group of potential students – those who already are happily employed.

EMCC is working with Verizon Communications, The Jackson Laboratory, Brewer Automotive Components and the Maine Tourism Association to provide industry-specific training and, in some cases, degrees, for qualified employees.

Michael Ballesteros, director of EMCC’s Bangor business and industry center, said the college is happy with the role it has taken on in local work force development.

“It has always been our intention to work with businesses and train workers,” Ballesteros said.

In 1997, EMCC partnered with Verizon Communications as part of Verizon’s Next Step program, which was developed in 1995. It is EMCC’s longest-standing example of local work force development.

Verizon’s program lets employees continue to work full time while earning an associate degree in applied science over a four-year period. Next Step is available at more than 20 accredited technical and community colleges across New York and New England.

Ballesteros said the Next Step curriculum combines EMCC courses and Verizon company strategies, but students’ individual skills are incorporated as well.

Verizon spokesman Dan Breton said the company is pleased with the relationship it has with EMCC.

“Our business is constantly about training. Anytime we can get involved with the community colleges, everybody wins,” Breton said in a recent telephone interview.

In addition to paying for tuition, Verizon buys every student a laptop computer, a graphing calculator and schoolbooks. Students attend classes one day a week, and Verizon considers it a workday for its participating employees.

The 10-year-old program originally may have had some flaws, according to one inaugural graduate, but a more recent grad said Next Step has evolved successfully.

Gary Downes, a 26-year Verizon employee from Hermon, was a member of EMCC’s first Next Step class. Downes said employees were told the intention of the program was to create a more educated work force for Verizon, and to offer participating employees opportunity for promotion.

For the most part, Downes said, those positions never developed.

“In most cases, guys just got a piece of paper and continued doing their job as usual,” he said in a telephone interview.

But the experience was not a total loss, according to Downes.

“Certainly the program served to give some people confidence and a sense of accomplishment,” Downes said. “It wasn’t necessarily that what we were learning was applicable to our jobs, but we were learning problem-solving skills and critical thinking.”

Loring Kydd, the Next Step program coordinator at EMCC, said the program has improved its curriculum, and now helps Verizon employees stay up-to-date on new technologies.

“Verizon recognizes that technology changes so fast; it’s important to have a means of developing workers to keep up,” Kydd said in a telephone interview.

Roger Ewer of Argyle is a Verizon employee who graduated from Next Step in the spring. He said the program employs many retired telephone workers as teachers, adding great depth and relevance to the courses.

“We were able to cover the basics from how a telephone works to emerging technology. They’ve brought in a lot of ex-telephone workers to teach who offered their experience from a broad range of technology,” Ewer said in a telephone interview.

Ewer said the program also emphasized teamwork.

“The most valuable skill the program offered was teaching us how to work as a team with a widespread group of people. It’s something that you can carry to every job you ever have,” Ewer said.

Verizon’s Breton said when employees have the opportunity for personal improvement, there is no downside.

“There are just so many advantages that come from having employees engaged in their education,” Breton said.

Kydd, who also instructs math as part of the program, said students sometimes have a hard time finding the 15 to 20 hours outside of class necessary to complete their homework.

“It really changes the lifestyle of the students. They have to wrestle with equalizing time spent with their families and the schoolwork, on top of working full time,” Kydd said.

Downes, who graduated in 2001, agreed.

“It was a lot to deal with. There were many weekends occupied by studying. Some guys had younger kids and I don’t know how they did it,” Downes said.

Despite the many challenges, more than 3,200 Verizon employees have graduated from the Next Step program, according to a recent Verizon press release.

The largest triumph for EMCC has been its ability to implement the work force development component from the Next Step program and successfully apply it to other local businesses.

So far, the college has developed specific programs for employees of The Jackson Laboratory and Brewer Automotive Components, and also has worked closely with the Maine Tourism Association on seminars for service industry workers.

“We have all kinds of flexibility to make sure we meet the needs of students and businesses,” Ballesteros said.

Charles E. Hewett, chief operating officer at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, said the lab has come to depend on the instruction EMCC is able to offer its employees.

“More than half of our 1,300 jobs are entry-level and only require a high school diploma, but these positions are essential to who we are and what we do. EMCC has been critical to us over the last decade to develop and train those employees,” Hewett said in a telephone interview.

Hewett said the lab ships out about 50,000 of its genetically engineered mice every week to companies around the world that conduct health and science research.

“Our lab animal technicians feed and water the mice, but they are also our first line of observation. There are a lot of skills that go with that, including strict record keeping. EMCC has helped us teach our employees why what they do is so important,” Hewett said.

EMCC also has spent the past five years developing a very successful skills-assessment and training program for Brewer Automotive Components.

Andy Fitzpatrick, plant manager at BAC, said not only has the skills-assessment process allowed BAC to “get the most bang for our buck,” it also shows how EMCC can help any business.

“Training dollars are expensive and you want to use them most efficiently. We don’t have enough staff to do it ourselves, but the assessment piece is EMCC’s forte,” Fitzpatrick said in a telephone interview. “The assessment tools offered can be used by any industry, by any company.”

EMCC’s Ballesteros said the college has worked hard to develop and implement its skills-assessment component and used BAC as an example of its success.

“I would love to develop more programs like we developed with Verizon and BAC. This is where this community college would like to go in the future,” he said.