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By JOYANNA LOVE | Managing Editor

The City of Clanton hosted a workforce development discussion with community and industry leaders on April 5 in preparation for a May event.

The Chilton County Job Recruitment and Training on May 17 will be a career training day open to all high school students in Chilton County at Clanton Conference and Performing Arts Center.

Industries interested in being a part can contact Debbie Street at Clanton City Hall (205-755-6840) for details.

Mayor Jeff Mims said workforce development is something his office has been trying to work on for more than a year.

A main objective is to get high school students interested in industrial and trade jobs that have shortages in workers and pay good salaries.

“We need people to work with their hands,” Mims said.

He emphasized the importance of getting students interested while they are in high school.

“If you wait until they are 25 or 26 years old, you have done lost them … we have to get them trained because mommas and daddies are not training them like they used to,” Mims said.

Representatives from Chilton County Schools, LeCroy Career Technical Center, GoBuild, James Hardie Building Company, Department of Commerce regional representative, McKinnon Toyota/ Nissan, Cowin Equipment Company, CraneWorks and others were a part of the April 5 discussion on what was needed to improve workforce development in the county.

Clanton Chief of Staff Bob Woods said the idea was for this to be a pilot program.

“Let this be the beginning of something that is going to be fluid and the secondary part of it of course would be additional career fairs,” Woods said.

The city wants to be an integral part of connecting employers with students and helping the local school system see the needs of industries in the region.

Several of the industries present mentioned the need for employees and that good salaries were available. Each was interested in how they could better connect and present the careers they had to offer too students before graduation.