Palm Beach County Companies Receive Almost $400,000 in Training Funds From Workforce Alliance

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Workforce Alliance awarded $388,345 in training grants to twenty-five Palm Beach County employers during the past program year (July 2009 – June 2010), resulting in job-related skills improvement training for over 450 employees.

The federally funded program, entitled "Employed Worker Training," is intended to help expand the economy of the County by helping Palm Beach County businesses improve their competitiveness and by providing their current employees with the skills required to increase their chances for advancement and to avoid risk of layoff.

Kathryn Schmidt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Workforce Alliance, pointed out, "The total impact of the grants was over $1,000,000 since the businesses that received the awards added a total of over $700,000 of their own funds to conduct the training.  The companies benefit through increased productivity, employee retention and bottom line profits so it just makes good sense that this taxpayer-funded program also requires that each participating employer share in the total cost."

Some of the Palm Beach County employers that received the training awards included Thompson & Youngross Engineering Consultants, KN Machine, API Group, Inc., Admiral's Cove, Viking Yachts and ITW Consumer.

Kris Dinges, Director of Human Resources for Admiral's Cove, credited the Workforce Alliance training program for "providing our management team with the necessary skills to take the company to the next level not only to exceed our members' expectations, but to also motivate the entire staff at our company to strive for continuous improvement."

Laura Mosconi, Human Resource Manager for ITW Consumer, said, "The Employed Worker Training program gave our team the opportunity to learn new skills and meet the  Department of Transportation certification requirements needed to do their jobs."

Workforce Alliance is the organization chartered by the State of Florida to develop and manage a workforce system in Palm Beach County and is the local recipient of federal taxpayer dollars earmarked to assist local employers in need of such programs as employee training.  

Palm Beach County businesses that are interested in obtaining more information or eligibility criteria for similar training grants should contact Kathy Bonner, Program Funding Manager, (561) 340-1060, ext. 2344.  Information and application procedures are also available online at www.pbcalliance.com.

SOURCE Workforce Alliance