The Southwest Transportation Workforce Center (SWTWC) is one of five transportation workforce centers that make up the National Network for the Transportation Workforce (NNTW). The NNTW will lead a national career pathway demonstration program as a result of being awarded a $1.25 million Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) grant titled the National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative. Each center, based in California, Montana, Wisconsin, Vermont, and Tennessee, is responsible for one broad discipline under the TWSI grant.
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SWTWC will serve as the administrative headquarters and the program lead for the initiatve. Under the grant, SWTWC will launch a pilot career pathway demonstration program focused on transportation planning career pathways. That pilot program will inform the development of subsequent career pathway demonstrations that address critical transportation occupations in planning, engineering, safety, operations, and environment. The Northeast Transportation Workforce Center (NETWC) will focus on the environmental concerns in the workforce, including topics like climate adaption, alternative fuels, and under-represented groups in the transportation workforce. The West Region Transportation Workforce Center (WRTWC) centers its focus on the safety concerns, including rural transportation and safety, mobility and livability, tribal transportation, and federal lands. The operations responsibilities of the initiative are apportioned to the Southeast Transportation Workforce Center (SETWC). In addition to these operational responsibilities, the SETWC focuses on transportation topics such as women in transportation, the military and veteran transition to the transportation workforce, and freight. The Midwest Transportation Workforce Center (MTWC) is responsible for the engineering duties under the initiative: transportation engineering, freight and infrastructure research, and researching best practices in building a workforce pipeline into the transportation industry.
The abiding goal behind the career pathway demonstrations is to engage students in the post-secondary educational continuum to choose transportation career pathways. The demonstrations will leverage insights from employers to empower students to first learn about critical transportation occupations and then develop the skills to meet the related workforce challenges.
With multidisciplinary specialists, stakeholders from across the country, and extensive labor market analysis, the national network team is uniquely positioned to carry out the goals of the strategic initiative. The career pathway demonstration programs will prepare future transportation professionals to develop industry competencies and move beyond disciplinary silos to address transportation workforce challenges throughout the nation.
Please direct any and all inquiries for the National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative to Project Coordinator Scott Jakovich:
(949) 939-9365