Knox area unemployed gobble up stimulus job training

In less than a year, David Gibson hopes to replace his old desk job with a new career--bedside.

After serving in Iraq and several other deployments, the 30-year-old came back home to East Tennessee in September. Six months later, he lost his civilian job.

"After I came back from our last one, I worked for Panasonic, that was my regular job. They shut down my section and moved it to Mexico," Gibson, a Sevierville resident said.

With no job, a family to take care of, and health problems, Gibson began to get desperate.

"My kids are basically my life," he said. "I've got two boys, my oldest one has cancer. At that time, I was actually considering to go on active duty again to teach at Fort Bragg and leave them."

While deployed, Gibson had wanted to go back to school in hopes of becoming a nurse. On and off waiting lists at Walters State Community College, deployments always got in the way of Gibson ever starting classes. Now, without a job and no way to save money so he could go back to school, it appeared the dream was dead.

Then, he got a call from a counselor at Tennessee Workforce Development. They were starting a LPN class. It was an accelerated program paid for with stimulus dollars that could get him into class and out looking for a job again in a year.

Gibson jumped at the opportunity and now is in his fourth month.

Most of his expenses are covered, along with those of 37 other students in the LPN class at the Tennessee Technology Center. The students even receive stipends for gas money and are eligible for grant money to help pay for living expenses.

For Workforce Development, the $1.46 million dollars in stimulus money went toward retraining 110 adults or laid off workers. That's a cost of about $10,500 per career transition, with some equipment purchases that will be available for future use.

All of the stimulus money for retraining has already been spent or reallocated.

Potential students have to select a field that's been deemed high demand to help ensure employment upon graduation. The majority of the students are taking classes in six main areas:

Weatherization auditing (home energy audits)
Licensed Practical Nursing
HVAC
Welding
Environmental Technology, including hazardous waste clean-up.

Counselors say they have been swamped with requests for the programs. It's been so popular, the regular annual budget is nearly depleted in addition to the stimulus funds. The normal annual budget has about $200,000 left as of October.

Gibson says he's not surprised at the demand.

"Just our uniforms are $250. That's just our uniforms."

Now eyeing a graduation date next summer, Gibson is looking forward to passing the state bar and he is confident he'll be ready to test the job market again.

Tennessee Workforce Development plans to follow him, along with other graduates, for a year. Workforce Development wants to know if they find jobs, what they're paid, and how long they stay in the industry.

"So far, even just working the clinical portion of the class has been more satisfying than the time I was at Panasonic," he said. "I liked the people but was kind of locked in at a desk, it doesn't really fit my personality. I enjoyed the job, but not as much as doing this. I'm working with people and I feel like I'm helping people."