Ford Miller job center to open

What started as a vision to bring more and better services to the unemployed in McDowell County is about to become a reality.
When the JobLink Career Center and Employment Security Commission close for business today and re-open next Tuesday morning in new digs on Baldwin Avenue in Marion, McDowell County will usher in a new era in employment training and job search assistance for local unemployed and underemployed.
Both the current JobLink site at 81 S. Main St., former home of B.C. Moore's, and the ESC office on State Street will be closed to the public Friday and Monday as employees pack and move furniture, books, files, computers, copiers and faxes, and haul them to 316 Baldwin Ave., the former office building for Marion Mills, which closed in the late 1990s.
The old office building sits directly across the road from the old textile mill.
When Ford Miller bought Marion Mills and all associated property and facilities several years ago, college officials began to talk with Miller about their vision for a true "one-stop" JobLink facility for McDowell County and the possibility of locating it on his newly purchased property.
As he learned more about the college's plans, Miller quickly began discussing the idea of donating the old office building to the college instead of renting or leasing to them.
When he deeded the building to the college the following spring, college trustees voted to name the new facility in his honor. When it opens Tuesday, The Ford Miller Employment and Training Complex will house all Employment Security Commission staff in McDowell County and all McDowell Tech and Isothermal Planning and Development Commission employees who work with job training and benefits in McDowell County. Other job-related agencies will have employees on-site at least part-time, including Vocational Rehabilitation and McDowell County Department of Social Services.
The JobLink Career Center is North Carolina's answer to the national "one-stop" movement, which seeks to market and brand employment and training services to the public so that it is easily recognizable throughout the state. An individual who goes to a JobLink Career Center in Murphy should be able to access similar services to what they may have experienced at a JobLink site in Manteo. What makes this center more unique than most is the partnership between local JobLink agencies and McDowell Technical Community College. Most comprehensive JobLink Career Centers do not have a significant relationship with a community college in their area and almost none offer workplace computer literacy, resume, interviewing, job search, career planning and pre-college training to agency customers. McDowell JobLink, through its collaboration with McDowell Tech, will offer each of these classes.
Brushy Mountain Builders, which was contracted by the college to renovate the facility, is working this week to complete the main floor of the building for occupancy Tuesday. The lower level of the building will not be ready for about four to six more weeks, and the college will announce plans to temporarily relocate some Basic Skills and ESL (English as a Second Language) classes from the current site while their lower level offices and classrooms are completed over the next month.
However, all other JobLink, ESC, McDowell Tech and Isothermal employees will make the move Friday and Monday. Some JobLink Internet-based services may be temporarily interrupted today as Elmer Macopson Jr., the college's director of technology, begins to move servers and computer equipment to the new site prior to programming telephone and data lines. All phones at the new facility will operate as IP (Internet Protocol) phones over the same Cat 6-Enhanced lines as computer data terminals will run, each with separate IP addresses.
True to the one-stop vision, all agency partners at the new JobLink will share common areas throughout the building, including reception, conference room, restroom facilities and a computer resource room. Sharing these facilities represents both an attempt to be more efficient, eliminating the need for two or more sets of those things, as well as a symbol of the seamless nature with which the new tenants will operate, despite their unique backgrounds and job functions.
"What we want is for members of the public to see us as one functioning unit," said Dr. Bryan W. Wilson, president at MTCC. To that end, college officials have even worked to ensure that the new phone system will allow individuals calling one of the agency partners, JobLink or ESC, for example, to be transferred to the other partner if they need to access services on that side of the house — even if they called in on a Verizon line designated to the other partner.
An official dedication and open house is being planned for later this fall when all renovations are complete, interior and exterior.
The public will be invited to tour the building at that time. Although employees will work with clients on the main level as last-minute installations and touch-up are being completed and lower level renovations continue downstairs, local JobLink Coordinator Jerry Broome asked folks to please be patient about visiting the new facility for non-business activity prior to the dedication/open house.
"We want people who need our services to come in and utilize our resources as needed, but it will take us a while to get everything unpacked and situated and looking more presentable," he said "In addition, we need to give the contractor as much space to work around us as possible as they complete last-minute items, mostly of a cosmetic nature."
"We hope that everyone will understand that there may be a spot of paint here and there that still needs to be touched up or a box that needs to be unpacked when we re-open, but we wanted to be closed as little time as possible during these times of high unemployment," said local ESC Manager Marilyn Williams. "Fortunately, we think that co-locating with JobLink will better serve the unemployed in this community, as well as new and existing employers who may need to expand or retrain their workforce to make them more competitive in the marketplace."