Watson Wire: ACC & the Austin Infrastructure Academy

Austin Community College Chancellor Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart announced on Friday that ACC would build a home for the new Austin Infrastructure Academy at ACC’s future Southeast Travis County campus. In the meantime, we’ll use ACC’s Riverside Campus.

ACC is a gem in our community and has a proven history of building the training programs our employers are looking for and the educational pathways that lead to family-supporting careers – not just jobs. So I was pretty excited when the Chancellor demonstrated his significant support for the Academy and approached us a few weeks ago with this amazing opportunity, which fits perfectly with ACC’s long-term plan, approved by voters in 2022, for a skilled trade campus near the airport.

We share the goal of clearing the way for local residents to get the training they need to take full advantage of the opportunities in our community and build economic security for their families. That means removing obstacles to training, which includes providing access to childcare, as well as other student supports.

The Austin Infrastructure Academy came out of a yearlong public-private partnership that brought together representatives from public project sponsors, job creators and workforce training providers, including local trade unions. Knowing we have $25 billion in mobility infrastructure projects coming our way, our Mobility & Infrastructure Partnership set out to determine our workforce needs to deliver those projects and craft a plan for addressing those needs.?

The comprehensive needs analysis from Workforce Solutions Capital Area and CivicSol determined the local talent pipeline would need to train and upskill an additional 4,000 workers each year beyond what we currently are producing to meet the needs of the mobility projects.?

The Austin City Council voted in early March to launch the Infrastructure Academy, which is in the early stages of development. The Academy will be a training hub that will ensure that community-based programs are aligned with each other and with in-demand skills and job sequencing based on real-time needs identified by both job creators and job seekers.

This initiative has earned Workforce Solutions Capital Area a well-deserved honor from the National Association of Workforce Boards. And during SXSW, I sat down with mayors from around the country to talk about what we’ve learned from this collaborative effort, which started with investments by CapMetro and the Austin Transit Partnership in 2023. Folks from around the country are watching what we’re doing and taking notes.?

ACC’s latest contribution helps us take another big step.

I am excited about the partnerships that are helping us to ensure everyone can create a life in Austin and am confident our work together will result in a best-in-class Infrastructure Academy that truly creates opportunities and changes lives right here in Austin, Texas.