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To learn more about trends in workforce development and job training in higher education, we spoke with Salvador Pina, dean of workforce and business development at the Center for Workforce Development at Roxbury Community College. He described the most sought-after courses and how he and his team identify priority training opportunities. Pina’s career started in psychology, and he acknowledged the “unexpected paths in everyone’s career” in this interview.
Mary Guiden: The mission of your center is to provide educational opportunities in and around Roxbury, a neighborhood in Boston. This includes offering skills upgrades for new and existing workers and customized training for businesses to help them reach workforce goals. How does that goal align with your student body or recent enrollment figures?
Salvador Pina, Roxbury Community College: The areas we serve, which include Roxbury and Mattapan, are historically underserved neighborhoods in Boston. We provide job training opportunities in high-demand fields like clean energy, health sciences, and entrepreneurship that lead to economic self-sufficiency to meet the needs of our students and help them move forward.
Guiden: What are your most popular or sought-after courses?
Pina: Boston is a major center for both education and healthcare. Many of the most requested courses are in allied health — fields like phlebotomy, medical assistance, medical billing, and coding. There’s a large demand for workers in those fields to fill good jobs with good pay and benefits, and that supports the people who work in them. Others are affiliated with our Center for Smart Building Technology, which trains workers for careers like smart building facility manager or building operator. Making buildings more energy efficient is one of the best ways to address climate change, since between 40-70% of the carbon that goes into the world comes from buildings.
Our offerings include a building automation technician training program. People who complete that program will walk into jobs that pay $75,000 a year.
Guiden: How do you and other college leaders decide which workforce training programs are most desirable?
Pina: We look at industries and identify jobs with good wages, benefits, and career paths that are in demand in our region. For example, due to climate change, the electrical grid is going to need a lot of work. When an HVAC system breaks down in a building, the owners will bring in the latest technology and they will need more trained technicians who understand that technology.
Guiden: On average, how many businesses work with the college in a year, and how has this changed, if at all, in the last 10 years? Could you share an example or two of how you are working with businesses?
Pina: We work with somewhere between 50 to 100 companies a year in many different capacities. They host our students, support our training, sit on advisory boards, and support the college through donations. RCC also provides businesses with incumbent worker training, or customized training programs, to help upskill the existing workforce.
The way it has changed in the past 10 years is that there is more demand for workers, which is when they need us. An example is that we work with CVS to train pharmacy techs. They advised us and helped us build our pharmacy lab. We do externships with Children’s Hospital, which hires our students for medical assistant and phlebotomy jobs.
Guiden: What’s your advice or best practice suggestions for colleagues at other institutions looking to support their community’s workforce goals?
Pina: You need to be innovative and find employer partners willing to commit to the process. Don’t just take any business that walks through the door. I don’t say ‘yes’ to a company because they are a business. They have to be willing to commit to certain things and put some skin in the game. In workforce development, it always begins with the job. If the jobs aren’t there, you can’t sell the training to the students.
Guiden: The Associated Press recently highlighted Roxbury and other community colleges offering clean energy training. This includes learning how to repair electric vehicles, troubleshoot wind turbines, and fix solar panel installations. What courses or training does Roxbury offer in this realm, and how do you envision this training expanding?
Pina: There are so many jobs in the clean energy sector right now that are not reflected in many higher education degree paths, meaning there aren’t enough skilled workers to fulfill these jobs that are positioned to only continue growing in the years to come.
You can’t be an expert in all aspects of clean energy. To teach a trade, you need to know what people need to do to become certified, the right jobs to match your certifications, where to find the experts to teach classes, and you need to have room for the necessary equipment for the students to practice on.
We focus on smart building technology and everything that goes with that. Since Boston has a lot of commercial and residential buildings, there is a lot of work to be done in this area.
At our Center for Smart Building Technology, we currently have a 100-hour program that teaches students about the technology and energy efficiency developments that are shaping the future. We are also launching a 450-hour program in Fall 2024. This longer program provides students with a deep understanding of the electronics, hardware, and software essentials for creating automatic control systems. Through project-based learning, the program covers topics like:
- Building Systems: Understand and manage HVAC, plumbing, lighting, and security systems.
- Control Devices: Learn about the types, applications, and wiring of BAS (building automation system) control devices.
- Installation and Troubleshooting: Master installation techniques, wiring practices, and troubleshooting methods.
- Design and Commissioning: Design, manage, and commission BAS projects from start to finish.
Students in these programs will have the opportunity to earn industry-recognized certificates, qualifying them for entry-level to mid-level positions in the building energy or building controls industry.
Guiden: Tell us about your career path, and what you enjoy most about working in higher education. What keeps you inspired?
Pina: There are unexpected paths in everyone’s career. I started as a behavioral psychologist, but a chance meeting led me to a director-level job in the Department of Employment and Training in the Boston, Massachusetts area. I have been at Roxbury Community College for over eight years and run our workforce development program.
I have partnered with companies and government organizations like Eversource, Automated Logic, CVS Healthmark, Children’s Hospital, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, and many others. What keeps me inspired is my belief in civil service and that economic self-sufficiency through meaningful employment is the best way to make people, families, and communities healthy. The work I do changes people’s lives.