In mid-September Invest Buffalo Niagara hosted a reporter from Site Selection Magazine for a two-and-a-half day visit throughout the region.
One of the highlights of the visit and itinerary item the reporter most enjoyed was our tour of the Northland Workforce Training Center (NWTC). Last week, the reporter, Gary Daughters from Site Selection Magazine, released a new piece within his publication all about NWTC and the ways in which it should become a blueprint for other communities to consider.
Opened in 2018, Northland Workforce Training Center is a crown jewel of Buffalo Niagara’s workforce development efforts. It puts community at the heart of everything it does — from the relationships fostered throughout the building to the wrap-around services offered to students. NWTC President & CEO Stephen Tucker is quoted throughout the piece and highlights some of the organization’s strongest achievements.
Enjoy an excerpt of the article below and make sure to read (and share) the entire piece here.
The Northland Model
Here’s a comeback story with numbers to back it up.
Central to Northland’s success at recruiting, retaining and graduating students, Tucker says, is a strategy focused on catering to the needs of what he calls “marginalized populations.” For that, Tucker says he drew upon established best practices and his academic background in organizational development.
“We call our students ‘customers,’” he says. “Most community colleges don’t do that. As a matter of fact, after their students pay their money, they’re basically just a number.”
Not so at Northland.
“What we’re doing,” he says, “is embedding wraparound services with our delivery of technical training. Those wraparound services include assistance with transportation, mental health, food, housing and childcare. Those are the extra resources our customers wouldn’t have access to traditionally.”
Site Selection Magazine also published this piece on Buffalo: Buffalo is Showing its True Colors.