$2.4M Advanced Manufacturing School Opens in Burnsville

Statement

State and local dignitaries gathered here Monday to celebrate the opening of a $2.4 million advanced manufacturing school at Mayland Community College's Yancey Learning Center.

"Manufacturing is back in North Carolina and it's the future of North Carolina," Gov. Pat McCrory said to about 200 people just outside the new building's front doors.

"We've always heard that manufacturing was dead, that we had to find something new," McCrory told the crowd. "No. We gotta keep making, building and innovating things -- and we gotta make sure we have the talent to do it."

Construction of the facility finished in February and 35 students already have begun training in vocations including machining and design, said Bill Baker, a board member of the community college's foundation.
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To make sure BRP and other companies like it begin receiving and continue to receive the workers they need, McCrory said North Carolinians should show children the career options they have starting in middle school.

"We have to communicate to them that this is one of the choices they can make," the governor said. "They can learn a skill, a vocation, a trade, in addition to building their intellectual capability."

McCrory emphasized that type of training won't earn them "just jobs, but careers. That's what people want," he said.

The manufacturing industry in North Carolina accounted for 11.1 percent of total employment in the state in 2013, higher than the national figure of 9 percent, according to the most recent data available from the state Department of Commerce.

In rural areas, the total was even higher, at 15.1 percent.

Those jobs pay an annual wage of $54,500 statewide, data showed.

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