SUNY JCC President Daniel DeMarte, Student Ambassador Tiago Aguilar of Brazil, Chancellor King, Student Ambassador Cassidy Vincent of South Dayton, N.Y., and Student Ambassador Anita Kolombintseva of Saint Petersburg, Russia.

SUNY Chancellor John B. King visited Jamestown Community College Monday.

The chancellor was appointed by the SUNY Board of Trustees earlier this year. His visit was part of an effort to tour each of the 64 institutions within the SUNY System.

Chancellor King spent the morning visiting the Jamestown Campus while chatting with student ambassadors and JCC President Dr. Daniel DeMarte.

They toured the Manufacturing Technology Institute and residence halls, then observed an Industrial Maintenance Technician class, and dropped by the Nursing department. The chancellor then met with faculty and staff to discuss how SUNY can support the college, and closed out the morning with members of JCC’s President’s Cabinet.

Welding students at Jamestown Community College

Jamestown Community College will begin offering the State Department of Transportation welder certification test beginning January 13.

Until now, Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Chautauqua county residents seeking the certification have had to travel long distances for testing.

The test will be offered at both the Jamestown and Cattaraugus campuses with the first test scheduled for 8:00 a.m. to noon this Friday. The test will be offered the second Friday of each month at the Manufacturing Technology Institute welding labs on each campus.

Testing is open to community members and JCC students. The cost is $399. Registration can be completed at sunyjcc.edu/nysdotwelder.

Those taking the test should be proficient welders in the vertical and overhead positions using the Shielded Metal Arc Welding process and E7018 electrodes.

Welders choose either a 3G vertical up position or 4G overhead position test. The finished product is X-rayed and sent to Albany for review.

Those who pass are certified to the requirements of the NYS Steel Construction Manual and can work on NYSDOT projects, including bridge welding.

Students can receive formal practice at JCC through the Welding programs offered this spring. Courses begin January 17. For more information, visit sunyjcc.edu/welding.

Jamestown Community College President Dr. Daniel DeMarte presents to Chautauqua County Legislature’s Audit & Control Committee (April 21, 2022)

Jamestown Community College President Dr. Daniel DeMarte made an initial ask for nearly $1.3 million for projects at the college before the County Legislature’s Audit & Control Committee.

DeMarte said a formal request will be coming before the County Planning Board later this year for two on-going projects and one new one.

The first project request for $53,000 is to finish the last phase of construction at the Scharmann Theatre to bring it into compliance with an Office of Civil Rights issue. Once that work is completed, the college will be able to re-open the theatre. The total cost of that project is $212,000. The second request would be $250,000 to install LED lighting on the Jamestown campus. The third and largest request is for almost $1 million, DeMarte said, to put turf down on the soccer field, “I can’t compete with Corning and other schools down the road if we don’t have the facilities to attract those students to JCC. They want to come. They want to be here. They like it here. They want to stay here. But we’re at a point where I simply cannot compete with our neighboring institutions if we don’t start making some improvements with the facilities and it starts with turfing the soccer field.”

The total cost for that project would be nearly $4 million.

DeMarte also discussed with legislators that in regards to the college’s two north county facilities, he’s not sure if that’s the best location for JCC to be. He said they are working on adding programming this Fall in Dunkirk similar to what’s offered at the Manufacturing Technical Institute in Jamestown, “What we offer there now is essentially the first year of the two-year transfer degree. We don’t offer any CTE programming in Dunkirk. I think that perhaps there’s a void. You know I often hear, as I’m sure you do too, that there are people who will not travel over the great divide, over the hill in Cassadaga into Jamestown, for an education at JCC.”

DeMarte said CTE training also will be offered this Fall in Dunkirk. He said the college is working on a new memorandum of understanding with the Job Corp in Cassadaga for them to have students go to both Jamestown and Dunkirk for CTE training.

DeMarte said the number of out of area students coming to JCC has helped offset the decrease in students from local high schools. He said they’re setting enrollment and recruitment goals at the pre-pandemic 2019 levels, “In that year we stopped a nine-year decline. So we’ve been sliding in enrollment for nine years. Not unusual. Most colleges in the country have been sliding. We stopped that in ’19. So our immediate goal is to get back to where we were in ’19 and then determine where we can go from there. We don’t anticipate that there will be much growth, but some stability.”

DeMarte said the college is working on workforce development, including creating a water treatment training program two years ago. He said the next closest location for this training is in Morrisville, New York, “We’ve trained over 300 individuals locally in water treatment. We’re now looking at wastewater treatment training because that need is there also. This one program has been so successful that we’re not being asked to come into other counties to help deliver the training which poses other challenges for us but that’s a good problem to have. So we’ve been asked recently if we’d take the training to Niagara County and help begin to train their municipalities in water treatment.”

DeMarte said in an effort to get students back to campus, they offered one free on-campus class to high school juniors and seniors. The goal was to get 60 students to take part and 100 students signed up before the program was even marketed. He said the same program will be run this summer and 90 students have already signed up for the 150 spots available.

DeMarte added that there was no good news in the state budget for community colleges. He said that community colleges fared worse in the 2022-23 budget than they had in the previous three state budgets.

Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier Executive Director Todd Tranum said manufacturing is the backbone of the economy for Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, and Allegany Counties, “$7.5 billion in shipments are exported from this region every year. And here’s the impact on the lives of people in our region of what that $7.5 billion in shipments means – It supports 18,000 family-sustaining jobs. It produces $805 million in payroll. And it provides $241 million in benefits.”

Ring Precision President and CEO Dale Gier said one of his company’s strugges is the loss of experienced employees due to retirement, “So, the reason we have been so actively pushing for the advancement in manufacturing and the technologies we need is, selfishly, we need these people to come and work for us to produce productive hours that then we can use to ship our products throughout the world. We are a global shipper so Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Israel – all daily conversations.”

Jamestown Community College and P-Tech Student Hope Smith has been part of the program for six years and will be graduating this Spring with a certificate of design in CAD. She said a manufacturers meeting between businesses and students led to her being able to get a summer internship with Bush Industries, “From there my summer internship ended and I went back for my senior year of college. Since then I was recently welcomed back as their new engineering technician and I’ve been working there for around three months.”

Smith said she encourages students to look into manufacturing because of the opportunities available.

“In addition, we are above last year’s actual enrollment on the first day of classes by 17.3 FTE, or 1.7%, a reflection on the outstanding work done by many to increase our enrollment,” noted JCC president Daniel DeMarte.

As of the first day of classes, the school says a total of 2,500 students – including 1,861 full-time, 773 continuing, 798 first-time, 163 readmitted, and 127 transfers – were enrolled for the fall semester.

DeMarte also pointed to other significant increases within the student population, including near full capacity in JCC’s residence halls with 322 students, compared to 236 at the start of the fall 2018 semester.

There’s also been an increase in JCC’s international student population, with 55 students enrolled from 25 different countries and representing six of the world’s seven continents.

The college has also seen an increase of student athletes, from 85 at the start of the fall 2018 semester to 155 filling the rosters in 10 sports, which includes the addition of three new teams.

And 28 students have enrolled in the Workforce Readiness Scholarship program, providing preparation in a variety of disciplines at JCC’s Manufacturing Technology Institute.

Front – Shaheem Freeney, Lane White, Jomar Medero Montanez, Carlos Soto, Christopher Calladine, Jonathan White-Smith. Back – William McArthur, Thorne Springstead, Jacob Wasberg, Eric Witherow, Abigail DeGolier, Anna North, Bailey Steenburn.

JAMESTOWN – Jamestown Community College held a signing day for the first recipients of the Workforce Readiness Scholarship at the Jamestown Campus.

The students, who will graduate from high school this month, signed a letter of intent to enroll in Manufacturing Technology Institute programs at JCC, beginning this fall.

Recipients include Christopher Alladine, Abigail DeGolier, Shaheem Freeney, William McArthur, Jomar Medero Montanez, Anna North, Carlos Soto, Thorne Springstead, Bailey Steenburn, Alexander Tremblay, Jacob Wasberg, Lane White, Jonathan White-Smith, and Eric Witherow.

The scholarship is available to qualified high school graduates in Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Allegany, Warren, Forest, Potter, McKean, Elk, and Cameron counties and in Corry and North East.

“The Workforce Readiness Scholarship was designed for high school students, especially those at BOCES centers or technology academies, who want to join the workforce immediately after college,” said JCC President Daniel DeMarte.

Workforce Readiness Scholarship recipients will benefit from exposure to state-of-the-art, high-speed, high-tech work environments and more paid hands-on experiences.

The Workforce Readiness Scholarship covers in-state tuition, fees, books, and program supplies to students enrolled in programs offered at JCC’s Manufacturing Technology Institute, including the industrial equipment technology, machine tool technology, welding technology, and CAD/CNC certificate programs and the welding technology and mechanical technology degree programs.

To maintain eligibility, students must be matriculated in and pursuing full-time coursework associated with one of the specified degrees or certificates and complete at least 12 credits per semester with a minimum 2.0 semester and cumulative GPA.

Scholarship recipients are matched with an employer who will provide either part-time employment, a paid internship, or an apprenticeship.

The Manufacturing Technology Institute, located on JCC’s Jamestown and Cattaraugus County campuses, offers manufacturing and manufacturing-related programs in partnership with MAST. MTI programs are establishing work readiness pathways for students with local manufacturers while providing employers with a skilled workforce.

Advanced Manufacturing Camp, open to students in grades 9-12, encourages participants to Explore 3D design and printing, welding, fabricating, basic LED electronics, and machining.

The registration fee is $20.

The Jamestown MTI will host the program from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, July 16-20. To register, call 338.1005.

A similar program will be held at the JCC campus in Olean the week of July 9-13. To register, call 376.7506.

JAMESTOWN – Less than a year after it was initially announced, a new manufacturing facility is now up and running on Fluvanna Ave. in Jamestown.

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul at the New Flyer welcome ceremony on Thursday, Jan. 27 in Jamestown, NY.

On Thursday Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul came to Jamestown to join several local officials and business representatives in welcome New Flyer to its new facility at the former Quality Markets supermarket on Fluvanna Ave.

New Flyer is a Canadian based company that is considered a leading heavy-duty bus manufacturer. The local plant in Jamestown makes component parts for the company, which are then sent to another plant to be used in the final assembly of buses.

Lt. Gov. Hochul explained that getting New Flyer in Jamestown was a group effort between local, regional and state officials. She also said that on Wednesday she was in New York City to deliver the governor’s budget message, and she shared details about the new buses that would be coming to the big apple.

“Guess what got the biggest applause? When we told them that we would be investing in new buses which, little did I know, were going to be made where I was going to be the very next day,” Hochul said. “So there’s a connection here. People are very excited. The fact that this company is responsible for over 2200 buses over the last 20 years, I guarantee you every New York has been on one of your buses.”

Hochul also explained to the more than 30 employees who were on hand that they’re work is going to have a big impact on New York City.

“I admire the innovation of the people at this company, who are becoming the global leaders in new forms of powering our public transportation,” Hochul said. “I can not tell you what a big deal this is, so know that here in Jamestown, your work is having a profound impact all across the country but also in New York City. They’re very excited about what you producing here.”

New Flyer Vice President of Manufacturing Kevin Wood talking with the audience, which included the estimated 40 workers who are employed at the new plant on Fluvanna Ave. in Jamestown.

New Flyer Vice President of Manufacturing Kevin Wood also shared details about how Jamestown was selected as the location for the company’s newest division.

“The reason that we’re in the state of New York is because we want to build buses for the city of New York,” Wood explained. “It’s a competitive advantage for us to be in New York. We also took a look around to decide where do we want to build this facility and it was settled that we would build in Chautauqua County, in Jamestown. That’s a lot to be said, because what we look for is something more than a building, we look at the community we want to invest in and we look toward the people we can invest in.”

Among the partners who helped to bring New Flyer to the area were the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency, the Jamestown Local Development Corporation, Jamestown Community College and its the Manufacturing Technology Institute, the Start-Up NY program, the Buffalo and Erie County Workforce Investment Board, and Shults Real Estate, which owns the building and committed $2.2 million in renovation work on it to prepare for the New Flyer operation.

The building features specialized space for welding, CAD/CNC, engineering science, industrial equipment technology, mechanical technology, and machine tool technology programs through credit and non-credit courses.

The MTI also provides makerspaces in which local industrial entrepreneurs can partner with JCC’s advanced manufacturing faculty and students to develop prototypes.

The Jamestown MTI, which opened in 2003, underwent a $3.6 million expansion during summer and fall 2016 to accommodate additional classrooms and new equipment. The Lenna Foundation and Jessie Smith Darrah Fund contributed funds to the capital construction project.

Adaptability has been key to planning equipment purchases and course development at the MTI.

“Relevant academic programs and non-credit training offerings reinforce JCC’s commitment to provide a quality education and prepare individuals for the workforce,” emphasized John Sayegh, JCC’s vice president for the Cattaraugus County Campus, continuing education, and external partnerships.

Additional information on MTI programs and courses can be obtained by calling 716.338.1000 or visiting www.sunyjcc.edu/MTI.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the awards for the 2015 Consolidated Funding Application – which are part of the state’s Regional Economic Development Council and Upstate Revitalization Initiative awards programs – will be made at 10:30 a.m.

Under a plan created by state economic development leaders, a total of $1.5 billion will be among three out of the seven regions in the state competing for money.

In addition, about $750 million in grants will be announced to various projects across the state, through the annual awards that Cuomo started in 2011, including dozens of projects proposed by the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council (WNYREDC).

Several local projects have applied for funding from the program, including the National Comedy Center, the development of new resort hotel in Celoron, the expansion of the Jamestown Community College Manufacturering Technology Institute, and the expansion of the South County Industrial Park in the town of Ellicott.

The announcement event will be streamed live on www.governor.ny.gov .

Projects in Chautauqua County vying for funding

WNYREDC PRIORITY PROJECTS IN CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY (Score 25 points each)

• Nation Comedy Center Connector (NCC) – $20,070,000 Total Cost / $1,500,000 requested from ESD
• National Comedy Center Park (NCC) – $,625,000 Total Cost / $325,000 requested from ESD
• South County Industrial Park Expansion in Town of Ellicott (Chaut. Co.)  – $1,000,000 Total Cost / $200,000 requested from ESD
• JCC Manufactureing Technology Institute Expansion (JCC) – $9,971,250 Total Cost / $985,750 requested from ESD
• Destination Hotel in Celoron (Chautauqua Harbor Hotel LLC) – $24,000,000 Total Cost / $2,830,708 requested from ESD
• E-Works in Dunkirk (Support Enterprise, Inc.) – $165,000 Total Cost / $33,000 requested from ESD

OTHER WNYREDC PRIORITY PROJECTS (SCORE OF 20)

– Implement Smarth Growth projects

• Frewsburg Water System Planning Study (Carroll) – $50,000 requested
• Northern Chautauqua County LWRP Phase II (Chaut. County) – $50,000 requested
• South and Central Chautauqua Lake Sewer District POTW Improvements $2,500,000 requested
• City of Dunkirk NY Main Street Program – $500,000 requested
• Trail Groomer (Ellery Sno-Cruiser) – $176,000 requested
• STRIVE Jamestown 2015 (Jamestown Renaissance Corporation) – $500,000 requested
• Winter Garden Plaza Phase II (Jamestown Renaissance Corporation) – $111,297 requested
• Welch Trail Recreation Area (Town of Westfield) – $200,000 requested

– Foster a Culture of Entrepreneurship projects

• Fredonia Technology Incubator – $375,000 requested

– Prepare Our Workforce projects

• Workforce Investment (N. Chaut. Co. Boys and Girls Club) – $42,000 requested

– Tourism projects

• WRFA Multimedia Studio / Marquee Upgrade (Reg Lenna) – $93,820 requested

REGIONALLY SIGNIFICANT PRIORITY PROJECTS (SCORE OF 15)

– Implement Smart Growth Projects

• North Chautauqua Lake Sewer District Expansion Study (AECOM) – $30,000 requested
• Lucille Ball Memorial Park Improvements (Celoron) – $120,150 requested
• Chautauqua Lake Tributary Stabilization Program – Dutch Hollow Creek (Chaut. Co) – $482,179 requested
• Chautauqua Lake Tributary Stabilization Program – West Dutch Hollow Creek (Chaut. Co) – $275,888 requested
• Chautauqua Lake Tributary Stabilization Program – Goose Creek (Chaut. Co) – $39,690 requested
• Chautauqua Lake Tributary Stabilization Program – Ball Creek (Chaut. Co) – $66,174 requested
• Chautauqua Lake Tributary Stabilization Program – Prendergast Creek (Chaut. Co) – $58,039 requested
• Chautauqua Lake Tributary Stabilization Program – Bemus Creek (Chaut. Co) – $151,200 requested
• Walnut Creek Restoration (Chaut. Co. Soil and Water Conservation District) – $167,250 requested
• Groomer Replacement (Chaut. Lake Snowmobile Cllub) – $191,013 requested
• Euclid Gardens Renovations (CODE) – $351,390 requested
• Rec Center Study (Dunkirk) – $20,000 requested
• WNY Excursion Train Study (JURA) – $30,000 requested
• Sewer Extension for West Side Chaut. Lake (South & Center Chaut. Lake Sewer Districts) – $100,000 requested
• Collection System Study (Village of Westfield) – $30,000 requested

– Prepare our Workforce projects

• Libera Inc. – $75,910 requested

– Tourism projects

• Destination Hotel (Chaut. Harbor Hotel LLC) – $255,000 requested
• Workforce/Program Development (Chaut. Regional Youth Ballet) – $27,000 requested
• National Comedy Center Marketing (National Comedy Center) – $525,000 requested