According the article, “Quality and cost of labor is a key driver in every location decision. Georgia’s Quick Start work force development program is one of the best in the nation and provides customized training at no cost to qualified companies in an array of industries. Nearly one million workers at 6,200 companies of all sizes have benefited from Quick Start.”
Georgia Quick Start, the nation’s oldest and most successful workforce training organization, provides comprehensive, customized training to qualified existing, expanding, and new businesses — free of charge — to create and save jobs, and promote business success.
Some of the state’s newest manufacturers reaffirm the effectiveness of Quick Start, its value, and the role it played in Georgia’s winning their jobcreating investments.
“I can’t say enough about Georgia Quick Start,” said Todd Henry, plant manager for Caterpillar’s new 1,400-job manufacturing plant near Athens. “They’ve just been phenomenal.”
And then there’s Baxter International’s 1,400-job biomanufacturing plant near Covington. To help support training for Baxter as well as future biotech companies locating in Georgia, Quick Start will operate the new Georgia BioScience Training Center.
Valery Gallagher, Baxter International’s director of government affairs, summed up the value Quick Start brings to advanced manufacturers and the taxpaying citizens of Georgia. Georgia competes globally for new jobs, she said. “And the uniqueness that Georgia brings is the Quick Start program. The Quick Start program for us was one of the key determinants.” She concluded, “As we looked at what different site locations offer, Quick Start was an enormous part of our decision-making process.”
In addition to ranking Georgia as the No. 1 state for workforce development programs, the consultants responding to Area Development’s 2013 survey ranked Georgia No. 1 for rail and highway accessibility and No. 2 overall based on its ranking in all 18 categories related to its overall business environment, labor climate, and infrastructure and global access.
