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By John Tyler Community College CHESTER and MIDLOTHIAN, Va. – Enhancing and expanding programs that […]

PETERSBURG — Petersburg’s unemployment rate currently stands at 7.1 percent, which is well above the state’s unemployment rate of 3.8 percent.

Though city officials are hoping a new pilot program, Petersburg Works, can help change that. The program, which launched last week, aims to connect residents seeking employment with employers who are looking for workers.

CHESTER — With tours, demonstrations and occasional giant blasts of safely controlled natural gas flames, Columbia Gas of Virginia celebrated the opening of a new training facility for employees who operate and maintain the company’s natural gas distribution system across the commonwealth.

RICHMOND, Va — The Virginia Economic Developers Association (VEDA) announced the selection of Prince George County in partnership with Prince George Electric Cooperative winners in one of three different population categories of the 2018 Community Economic Development Awards (CEDA), presented last week at the association’s Spring Conference in Richmond.

Nearly 34 million people in America lack access to high-speed internet, 23 percent of which live in rural areas overlooked and underserved by major wireless and cable providers. Prince George Electric Cooperative has finally developed an innovative, cost-effective solution for affordable, reliable broadband access in rural communities, leveling the playing field with their urban counterparts.

Established in 1938, the Prince George Electric Cooperative’s (PGEC) founders “acted on a vision of improved quality of life” to bring the comforts of automated overhead lighting and running water to rural Prince George and Sussex Counties for the first time. 80 years later, PGEC’s CEO Mike Malandro still encompasses these progressive values, acting on an altruistic vision to improve the area’s quality of life through broadband access.

Unveiled in October 2016, PGEC and its subsidiary PGEC Enterprises, LLC launched a pilot program that entails a last-mile, fiber-to-the-home model, bringing internet service to these unserved rural communities. This revolutionary process begins with the installation of a “smart grid” of large fibers connecting power substations across the service area. Using efficient tools, PGEC’s own linemen lay the “last-mile” of fiber, connecting individual homes and businesses directly to the smart grid.

RICHMOND, Va.,– Today, William T. Powers III, president and CEO, Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM), announced the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) has awarded CCAM a grant of $3.15 million to build an apprentice academy in Prince George County, Virginia. This award is supplemented by an additional $9.5 million appropriated from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

CCAM established the Advanced Manufacturing Apprentice Academy to bolster the state’s advanced manufacturing industry by creating a reliable pipeline of workers with factory-ready skills and credentials suitable for high paying jobs. These grants allow CCAM to begin the construction phase on the Academy.

PRINCE GEORGE — Residents of rural Prince George County hoping to gain broadband access are now seeing light at the end of the tunnel — or, in this case, at the end of the cable.

Since February 2017, 50 households in the county have enjoyed top-of-the-line fiber connections, with the promise of more to come.

In the fall of 2016, Prince George Electric Cooperative unveiled a pilot program that offered last-mile fiber connections. By installing a “smart grid” of large-count fibers connecting power substations across the service area, PGEC was able to develop a revolutionary process. With this structure in place, PGEC’s own linemen can efficiently lay the “last mile” of fiber from the smart grid to individual homes and businesses.