For Sugar Hill resident Ajay Miles, the decision to get his higher education from a technical college rather than a four-year liberal arts college came down to what he wanted to do with his life.
Miles, 19, is in his first year as an general automotive student at Gwinnett Technical College. He got interested in cars in high school and went on to graduate from the automotive program at Gwinnett County Public Schools’ Maxwell High School of Technology.
Although he’s working at a Toyota dealership now, Miles sees a two-year degree from Gwinnett Tech as a way to help him continue developing his skills and prepare him to join the workforce with a good salary.
“This will give me that broader range that I’m looking for in case I do move away — because with me being so young, I don’t know how long I’m going to be in the general area — to give me that range of cars like this versus a different car instead of it being on one specific (vehicle make),” Miles said as he stood between two different vehicles in one of Gwinnett Tech’s automotive classrooms.
“It helps me be able to know exactly what I’m looking at.”
Miles is one of the 15,689 Gwinnett Tech students that U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler came to the school to see on Monday.
Chavez-DeRemer and Loeffler visited the school to see how a new generation of American workers are being trained for the workforce, and to highlight the importance of a career technical education.
During the visit, they heard about Gwinnett Tech’s partnerships with Gwinnett County Public Schools to help bring training into local high schools as well as business partnerships, such as one with Mercedes-Benz to train service workers for its metro Atlanta dealerships.
Chavez-DeRemer praised Gwinnett Tech’s staff and administration for the work they’ve been doing, and called it a model for other technical schools to follow.
“These are best practices, we’re seeing it, it’s proven, it’s tested,” Chavez-DeRemer said.
“We’re bringing the next generation, middle schoolers and high schoolers, and getting them excited about working with their hands, building something that people want and going home to their families at night with more money in their pockets.”
Gwinnett Tech officials took Chavez-DeRemer and Loeffler around the campus to see some of the career degree programs they offer students.
In addition to the automotive programs, they also visited classes where students are learning how to work in cybersecurity and gaming development.
Career training is a big focus for the Trump Administration, according to Loeffler and Chavez-DeRemer. The administration has a goal to ensure active apprenticeship opportunities are being created for skilled labor positions.
So far, more than 185,000 new apprentices and more than 1,800 apprenticeship programs have been created since January, according to Chavez-DeRemer.
“There is an executive order by the president to have 1 million active apprentices across this country to build back America, manufacturing, any of the trades, any of the private sector as well,” Chavez-DeRemer said.
“Eighty-four percent of the jobs that have been created since this president took office have been in the private sector.”
Chavez-DeRemer also said she was impressed with what she heard from Gwinnett Tech officials about their ability to place graduates in jobs, post-college, with good salaries.
“We heard it right here on the shop floor (after) five semesters, a technician coming out of (Gwinnett Tech’s Mercedes-Benz program) can go right to the floor at Mercedes-Benz earning anywhere from $85,000 up to $200,000 a year,”Chavez-DeRemer said.
“You can’t tell me that is not going to provide for their families, be able to buy a home, provide for their children. That’s what the American workers want.”
While many people might think of the Small Business Administration working with small business owners directly through assistance and programs, helping train a work force for these businesses is another way the SBA can help out.
“We’re talking about how do we bring more resources to bear for them to recruit and train workers because it is a limiting factor in terms of their success,” Loeffler said. “So we’re working across the administration to bring these programs to bear and make sure they know what’s available.”
In fact, a skilled workforce is one of the top issues for small businesses across the U.S. right now, according to Loeffler.The SBA administrator said there are about 600,000 jobs in manufacturing that need to be filled by a skilled workforce.
“Small business creates two out of every three new jobs in this country (and) small businesses make up 99% of businesses in America — 36 million job creators,” Loeffler said.
“That’s why I’ve partnered with the labor secretary, my good friend Lori Chavez-DeRemer, to ensure from this administration’s point of view, that there is nothing more important to this country than American industry, the American worker and our military. None of that can be achieved without skilled labor.”
Gwinnett Tech President Glen Cannon said the chance to host two officials from the Trump administration was exciting, but he also called it “a testament to what our faculty, staff and students are doing.”
“We are not thinking just about Gwinnett and Fulton, which is our service areas, anymore,” Cannon said. “We used to think nationally. We’re thinking globally now. Our goal has been to put Gwinnett Tech on the global map when it comes to professional education and career education.”
Chavez-DeRemer and Loeffler ended their tour by visiting the classroom where Ajay Miles and his classmates were getting ready for a lesson on how to tell if a car battery is over or undercharged and what both situations mean.
Miles said Gwinnett Tech officials told the students they were going to have some visitors drop in, but they didn’t say who the visitors would be.
The fact that it was two members of President Donald Trump’s administration took the students aback.
“It was like, ‘That was not what we were expecting,’” Miles said. “We didn’t know what we were expecting, but it was not that.”
At one point during the visit, Miles got to talk to Chavez-DeRemer directly about getting an education from GwinnettTech. He hoped the conversation helped underscore of the value of programs like the one he’s enrolled in.
“These programs are very good and helpful for … people who, what they want to do isn’t sitting at a desk or doing something with like math or social studies or something like that,” Miles said.
“These programs can help people who want to make a career doing something with their hands or physical work.”