Local leaders tout Google, CCAC tech job-training program

Local leaders gathered Wednesday morning to tout what they said has been a successful partnership between Google and the Community College of Allegheny County to train residents in software engineering.

CCAC was one of a handful of community colleges to originally participate in the 18-month TechWise program, which bears a resemblance to traditional trades apprenticeships, with the first group of 25 students set to graduate in September. It is geared toward people from communities underrepresented in the tech industry, with students attending a two-hour online class three days a week provided by education company TalentSprint, as well as receiving one-on-one mentoring from Google software engineers.

Fionnlagh Jones, who was part of the first group of students, said the program helped to broaden their horizons. Jones has already been hired as a junior software engineer.

“We’re not always awarded the same opportunities as students at four-year universities,” Jones said at an intimate celebration event held at the CCAC campus on Pittsburgh’s North Side. “Putting us alongside students at four-year universities, and treating us as if we are already professionals, was a huge step for all of us.”

County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said CCAC has long been key to helping narrow the gap between skills that jobs require and residents currently have, pointing to a midnight welding class that was restarted several years ago.

“We also want to make sure that you stay here, because we are so delighted with our robotics and our tech and our AI ecosystem that we have here,” he said.

The region has long had conversations about how to diversify its economy after relying heavily for so long on the steel industry, and U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pittsburgh, said inclusive training programs can help provide all Pittsburghers with opportunity.

“How do we turn corners? How do we make sure that as we turn those corners, every community gets to come with us?” she said. “Our future is bright because Pittsburgh is committed and dedicated to making sure that we are creating opportunities.”

Work on the program started about a year and a half ago, when U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., began chatting with Fitzgerald and then U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb. Khanna said it has been a “deliberate policy mistake” that the government hasn’t worked to create opportunities in places hurting economically, while adding there is a “new renaissance” taking place now to increase the nation’s manufacturing capacity.

Khanna, who has recently been traveling the country to advocate for tech investment beyond just the East and West coasts, said he is proud that the program has gone beyond rhetoric and is producing results.

“The lesson is you can’t just pass something in Washington, allocate money and expect the jobs to happen,” he said. “It really has to be done on the ground, but if you do it on the ground, we can do this anywhere.”