An effective industry-university partnership to develop tomorrow's workforce

Abstract

This paper presents Sam Houston State University and Quanta Service Workforce Development (QSWD) Program as a significant initiative to bring together higher-education and the business world for a symbiotic workforce development relationship. Through this partnership, Sam Houston State University is able to enhance its Engineering Technology (ETEC) program with guidance, feedback and interaction from a highly technical and industry leading organization, Quanta Services (QS), the largest specialty contractor in North America that provides Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) services for comprehensive infrastructure solutions to the electric power, telecommunications and oil-gas industries. In turn, through the partnership, Quanta Services provides an easy access to the qualified candidates for available positions upon their graduation from Sam Houston State University. As part of the partnership, a Quanta Endowed Professor position was also established and a new faculty member was hired by the funding provided initially by Quanta Services to serve in conjunction with a Quanta Services designated representative to lead the key partnership programs. The focus of all programs are based on the goal of increasing within graduating students, job specific skills and improved industry awareness, which will make the students better suited to fill the present workforce gap more quickly upon hire. The pilot program was focused in three main areas: slightly enhanced courses from the engineering technology curriculum, a company and industry specific minimester course and an internship program. The paper also describes a unique industry-university partnership example that includes industry-site course offerings to develop job specific skills that expand to the project management level workforce. In an industry centric and company specialized minimester course, the students stay at a state-of-the-art, remote industrial training site and receive classroom and practical application training on full life-cycle utilities project management with the help of company experts from Quanta Services.