CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Del Mar College was finally able to show off its state-of-the-art process technology lab. School officials said the COVID-19 pandemic had put a hold on the celebration until Monday.
The ceremony at Del Mar College’s West campus spotlighted the $1.5 million dollars that Gulf Coast Growth Ventures gave to the college for the process technology lab, which was named for the company. There were also $164,000 in student scholarships that Growth Ventures handed over to Del Mar as well.
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Lenora Keas said that Del Mar has resources that no other higher learning institution has.
"Del Mar College now has the equipment that no other college in the entire United States has. We have world-class, state-of-the-art petrochemical and refinery equipment," Keas said.
Iain Vasey is the regional president and CEO of the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation. Vasey believes the process technology lab is another important tool for our colleges to have as we try to train our workforce to be able to get high paying jobs.
"You can graduate from high school here, stay here and go through that two-year program and come out and make $100-$120,000 a year," Vasey said.
Additionally, Vasey pointed out that our unemployment rate right now is still around 6.8-percent. He said it needs to come down to around 4-percent before our workforce would be considered fully employed.
"Still, the leisure and hospitality sector is struggling," Vasey said. "There are a lot of jobs available in things like the medical field and nursing and related fields like that. The hotel industry is still looking for a lot of folks."
So while our economy is still looking for more workers in other fields, this process technology lab is going to help train the 300 or so students going through the program right now.
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