By A.J. O'Leary February 6, 2025
Birmingham Business Journal
The largest community in Walker County is taking major steps to revamp its workforce.
Private industry experts, educational leaders, government officials and others have big plans for workforce development in Jasper. Two new facilities are planned on both sides of Industrial Boulevard in the city. In the short term, they represent roughly $100 million or more in new investment. In the long term, officials believe they could bring a much greater return.
“This is just the beginning,” Walker Area Community Foundation President Paul Kennedy said. “Together, we will continue to strengthen industry partnerships, secure additional resources and equip students with the tools, training and opportunities they need to thrive.”
Bevill State Community College is planning to expand its existing HVAC training facilities at 3711 Industrial Court in Jasper with a new facility for training in various industries including weatherization, solarization, electrical vehicles and fiber optics connectivity.
That will either be a new build attached to Bevill State’s existing facility or a retrofit of an existing, 53,000-square-foot building on the same site.
Across the street, the Walker Area Community Foundation is currently raising money to add a story to an existing training facility through a roughly $60 million investment. That will create the Heman Drummond Innovation Center, which will provide dual enrollment training for roughly 2,000 high school students at a time in welding, construction, automotive technology, health care and other career-related subjects.
“We think it’s good obviously for us locally, one, just the impact of having those facilities here and people coming here to train, but then also, two, the mayor and council believe it’s certainly going to be a star in our crown for industrial recruitment,” Jasper City Planner Brent McCarver said.
McCarver said the city is currently assessing traffic impacts and infrastructure needs in the area including widening roads, adding turning lanes and more. He said retail has also grown rapidly nearby.
“Both facilities have side roads that obviously come off of Industrial Parkway, so we’re coordinating everything from drainage to water, sewer, power, all of your infrastructure and right-of-way work,” McCarver said.
Bevill State Community College President Joel Hagood said Bevill State’s existing facility in the area is owned by the college, but Alabama Power provides some of its instructional curriculum components and equipment.
“There’s really nothing like it in the Southeast,” Hagood said.
Hagood said that facility has been in operation for several years, and once it has expanded will create the new Alabama Energy Infrastructure Training Center and Network.
Once the site is complete, Hagood said other community colleges in the state will be able to send a class of electricians to the new facility to learn about fiber optic connectivity or help an electricians’ brotherhood add TV installation and repair certification to its repertoire.
“The idea is they schedule this through the center, we take care of the online training or face-to-face — could be either one — but then we have mobile units that are available, that have all the equipment and things needed to provide the hands-on training,” Hagood said. “We hook it up, we haul it up to (another institution) and then we handle the hands-on part of it, which can take anywhere from two weeks to a month depending on what it is.”
Hagood said Bevill State will likely know in about three months whether it will need to build a new facility or retrofit the existing nearby building. New construction could take roughly a year, Hagood said, whereas a renovation would likely be quicker. Hagood said the project will be funded with a $30 million pot of money allocated by the state legislature during the last several years for a new workforce training center.
Workforce also has been a priority for lawmakers of late.
As for the other side of Industrial Boulevard, Jim Trotter, vice president of development and marketing with the Walker Area Community Foundation, said Heman Drummond’s family approached the foundation a decade ago with the vision to create a new workforce training center.
“The foundation actually did a strategic plan 10 years ago, and the data from the plan showed that we were needing to expand our resources as far as technical education happens,” Trotter said.
Trotter said technical education was a high priority once again in a strategic plan the foundation completed last year.
Trotter said the Heman Drummond Center will more than double the capacity of the facility Jasper City Schools and Walker County Schools currently use in partnership with Bevill State for dual enrollment workforce training from 750 students to up to 2,100. Plans are to open the Heman Drummond Center in 2026.
Trotter said he is confident the project will reach its fundraising goal of $65 million.
“The way it currently is working is $40 million to $50 million in private philanthropy, public investment of $10 million to $20 million and industry collaboration of $5 million to $10 million,” he said.
It’s an important topic for Jasper, which was once reliant on the coal industry for employment, and which, Trotter pointed out, has a higher substance abuse rate and a lower labor force participation rate than the state as a whole.
“There have been so many people that are excited about this project and how it’s going to help create generational change in our community that so many people have gotten behind it already,” he said.
Kennedy said the Heman Drummond Center of Innovation will be a symbol of progress and opportunity for the area and will position it as a leader in workforce development and economic growth.
“This partnership reflects a shared vision for the future of our students and our community,” he said. “Through collaboration with schools, industry and donors, we are building something unique — a public technical school funded in part by private donors — a model we haven’t seen replicated anywhere else in the nation."