Gubernatorial Candidate McAuliffe Visits Northern Virginia Community College Medical Education Campus in Springfield

Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe visited the Northern Virginia Community College Medical Education Campus in Springfield Monday to learn more about their workforce development program.

McAuliffe and his campaign have been traveling around Virginia listening to business and community leaders express their ideas on mainstream solutions in making the Commonwealth more attractive to business.

During the tour of the campus, McAuliffe said the key for the next Virginia governor is economic development and job creation.

"Obviously, we need to diversify our economy. Because of all of the challenges with the defense cuts and sequestration, we're moving into a whole new economy," McAuliffe said. "And to get that workforce training, we have to make sure that the workers here have the training for 21st century jobs and that training is being done at the community college level."

McAuliffe emphasized that this also applies to those who have also lost their jobs — not just recent high school graduates.

"If you've lost your job, retraining is also at the community college level, so this to me is at the front line of defense of what we need to do to take our economy to the next level, to diversify it. And in order to bring in new businesses and grow the ones we have, we have to have a trained workforce and that's what the community colleges are doing," he said.

President Robert Templin and Provost Brian Foley presented some facts about NVCC's medical education program and about the benefits of getting an education at a community college.

NVCC enrolls more than 78,000 students annually in credit courses according to Foley. The provost also focused on unique aspects of the college including academic partnerships with universities and state-of-the-art design.

Templin and Foley also shared their thoughts on the healthcare field with McAuliffe. Foley said many students know about nursing and sutdying to become a doctor or an EMT, but it's important to do outreach to inform more high school students about the health information management (HIM) and health information technology (HIT) fields in order to bring more professionals into the medical and healthcare fields.

"Everybody has different choices on what they should do with their lives. Not everybody should go to a four-year college. Many folks don't want to go to a four-year college," McAuliffe said Monday. "The key is going to be what is going to be what will be more productive and what job will be there for you when you finish up. Whatever your level of education is going to be, there is a job."

McAuliffe pointed out that he and his wife Dorothy have lived in Northern Virginia in the same home for 21 years and would like to have their five children live in Virginia as well. However, in order for them to stay in the region, Northern Virginia has to have jobs for the 21st century.

"I think having career counselors get involved — just what they're doing here at NoVa — going into the high schools getting them early and getting them excited about STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics] courses," he said. "That's how you have to do it, and that's a program we should expand upon and what we need to do to build that workforce development."