Business & Tech
Macomb College’s Designer Retraining Program Receives Gold Star
The Designers Helping Designers program works to draw up a blueprint that will get laid-off or unemployed designers back into the work force.
It’s never too late to learn, and Macomb Community College’s new design program is a perfect example! Macomb’s Designers Helping Designers program helps unemployed designers adapt to the evolving industry, practice with the most recent software and strengthen these new skills.
The college’s work is not going unnoticed. The training program recently received the Outstanding Corporate Training Project Award from the Michigan Association of Continuing Education and Training, a statewide group of community colleges looking to lead the integration of work force development, continuing education, economic development and community services in Michigan.
Having retrained nearly 200 designers since the program’s launch in 2010 and with an overall placement rate of 76 percent, it is easy to see why the Designers Helping Designers program is catching people’s eye. Not only is it helping to give previously unemployed individuals well-paying jobs, but it also is returning highly skilled designers to the work force.
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Macomb’s award-winning program was created in collaboration with the American Society for Body Engineers Foundation, the Macomb/St. Clair Workforce Development Board and a technical resource firm called Talascend with a focus to help both the industry and the worker.
In order for the worker to be eligible for the 64-hour training program, they must have at least five years of experience in the automotive industry including the use of either CATIA or UG software. Once in the program, the trainees are able to take credit or noncredit courses depending on whether they would like to pursue an associate degree.
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While the program has previously been and is currently being offered at the Macomb Campus, it will now be offered at partnering community colleges. The ninth Designers Helping Designers class is scheduled to begin on Sept. 19 at Mott Community College and then another in October at either Macomb or Oakland.
Interested in enrolling? Then Program Coordinator John Frey is your guy! If this program piques your interest, then don’t miss out this opportunity to redesign your future.
