Scholarship ensuring future’s workforce has needed skills

Faced with a shortage of skilled workers in the trade industry, facility maintenance supplier W.W. Grainger Inc. is taking steps to address the problem. The company awarded recently a local community college student with a scholarship.

Brian Knight, a Fletcher Technical Community College machine tool technology major, received a $2,000 Grainger Tools for Tomorrow scholarship. Knight will also receive $1,000 in Westward tools upon successful program completion.

“I am grateful for Grainger’s generous contribution that has helped to further my career in machining,” said Knight, a Thibodaux native. “This scholarship provides an opportunity for me to focus on my professional goals as a leader in the machining field and in my local community.”

The scholarship program helps to address the nation’s shortage of skilled workers.

“The trade industry is a dying industry. We feel it’s important to keep it alive,” said Donald Alphonso, branch manager of Grainger’s Houma store, which opened on Louisiana Highway 311 on Dec. 29.

“Grainger decided to partner with local trade schools to try and help students develop their future and the future of the trade industry,” he added. “We want to play a critical role in reducing the growing skills gaps that are occurring in the country. We’re just trying to support the technical education system.”

Since the inception of Tools for Tomorrow in 2006, Grainger has invested in the future of 51 students across the country, 35 last year alone, according to Alphonso. The company has awarded more than $48,000 in scholarship money and tool kit supplies.

Alphonso presented Knight his scholarship in November at the Fletcher main campus in Houma, along with school Chancellor F. Travis Lavigne.

“The industrial trades are in critical need of trained, skilled workers with an understanding of today’s modernized tools, technologies and processes,” Lavigne said. “With the increasing demand for those individuals, it is essential that we continue to invest in their talent, and Grainger is doing that through this scholarship program.”

Knight was nominated for the award by Fletcher’s faculty. Instructors described Knight as an excellent, hard-working and dedicated student.

Helping students who are entering professions where they may become future Grainger customers is part of the partnership with technical colleges, according to Alphonso.

“We’re helping them today, so that in the future we will also be providing for them once they are out in the industry,” he said. “We’ll be able to supply them with the tools and supplies they need to move forward.”

“Together, we can help ensure that the Houma community continues to have an ample pool to meet the demand for workers in the skilled and technical trades,” Alphonso added.

Houma’s Grainger facilities maintenance supplies distributor recently awarded a Tools for Tomorrow scholarship to Fletcher Technical Community College student Brian Knight. Pictured from left are Branch Manager Carl Prince, Knight, Grainger Customer Service Manager Donald Alphonso and Fletcher’s Chancellor F. Travis Lavigne Jr. * Photo courtesy of W.W. GRAINGER INC.