Jan 12, 2018 4 min read

RUFF CREEK – As Gov. Tom Wolf toured a facility Thursday morning that once was used to teach mine rescues and now will be retrofitted to retrain unemployed coal miners for new careers, Greene County Commissioner Blair Zimmerman raised the issue of potential job opportunities the trainees may have in the future.

The UMWA Career Centers Inc. on Dunn Station Road in Washington Township recently received a $3 million state grant to help repurpose its Ruff Creek training center, which previously trained miners to work in area coal mines. Now, it will help workers develop skills for jobs in other high-demand professions.

“Help us help ourselves,” Zimmerman implored the various dignitaries visiting the facility to announce the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant from the state. “We need other opportunities in Greene County.”

Coal is important to the region and nation, Zimmerman said, but Greene County needs new industries to support workers. Greene County can’t depend on coal forever, and the workers that will receive training at the facility will need somewhere to put those new skills to use, Zimmerman said.

Robbie Matesic, executive director of Greene County economic development, agreed, adding diversifying the opportunities for education locally is great. There isn’t really a place Greene County for adults to learn a trade. However, there needs to be a market for those workers to enter.

“There need to be jobs,” she said. “That’s really the opportunity for success.”

Clemmy Allen, executive director of the 64-acre campus near Ruff Creek, said the grant money is an important step in preparing the facility for new training opportunities. Funds will help construct a new commercial driver’s license pad, adding to the diesel building and repairs to the main building’s roof. It’ll also help transform the simulated coal mine into classrooms and computer labs.

He hopes to begin rolling out programs this year.

“We anticipate the CDL working certainly by late spring, early summer,” he said.

Wolf said in the first phase, about 400 workers will be trained in an effort to invest “continuously and constantly in good people” for middle-class jobs, a “roadmap to providing for strong families and strong communities.”

“This project delivers on the promise to make life better for so many people,” he said. “I’m making this a priority in my administration, that we have a really robust network of opportunities for people, for whatever reason, at whatever age.”

Wolf was joined by state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll, and state Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, along with other officials from Greene and Washington counties.

Snyder said she felt like a proud parent watching her child graduate high school.

“This grant is going to really help this facility and the people in this community, people who need it,” she said.

Bartolotta said there’s a exodus from the state and hopes training centers like the one in Greene County will help people decide to remain in Pennsylvania.

“We want them to stay here. We want them to have family-sustaining jobs,” she said.

After his tour of the training center, Wolf said he was impressed.

“What we’re talking about is the changing nature of the economy,” Wolf said. “To get to where we are today, we’ve had a lot of change. The key in a perfect world is to make sure we’re allowing individuals to adjust to those changing realities.”

Allen, noting the recent announcement to close 4 West Mine near Mt. Morris, said anyone eligible could begin training at the facility as courses are available.

“If we have the CDL course up and running by August, a lot of those folks could come here, do their CDL training and have it paid for,” he said.

Most of the money coming into the training center, including an additional $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce and another $1.2 million from Appalachian Regional Commission, is earmarked for coal miners. The facility will not be exclusive, though its primary focus will be displaced workers. Allen said they would look for additional money to help anyone else that may be interested in training at the facility.

“We’ll find money in other places for folks that aren’t eligible,” he said.

Training will include cybersecurity, coding, diesel mechanics and other heavy machinery opportunities.

Allen said repurposing the facility, which originally opened in 2009, has been bittersweet. They were proud of being one of the premier miner safety skills centers, but now they’ll offer top-notch workforce training in other industries.