Putting WIRED Funds to Great Use: Raritan Valley Community College's BioMan Partnership

With an eye on Bio-1's goal of developing bioscience talent in Central New Jersey, Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC), together with industry partner ImClone Systems Incorporated proposed BioMan, a program to retool workers for real jobs in the high demand biotechnology industry.  The first round of this cerificate program, which includes 12 weeks of lab and class work and 12 weeks of on-the-job training at ImClone kicked off in November with a group of 16 displaced workers from a variety of industries.

The program, developed by Dr. Melanie Lenahan, head of the biotechnology program at RVCC, Julia West Johnson, Associate Dean, Corporate & Continuing Education at RVCC, and Nancy Jordan, Dean of Academic Program Development and Partnerships at RVCC with lots of input from industry is modeled after a similar successful program from the Bay Bio Institute in California which helped retrain displaced workers from the airline industry for jobs in biotech.  

There is no need for participants to have a science background, and testimonials from the current group of participants say that the PhD level faculty are top notch.  The academic portion of the program typically has participants in the lab at RVCC from Monday through Thursday covering topics ranging from lab safety through biology and microbiology techniques.  Fridays are typically reserved for field trips to companies, but also will be used for additional training topics, such as excel and powerpoint training, understanding a regulated environment and job search techniques including interview skills and how to market themselves.  

Upon completing the certificate program, they will interview with ImClone and other life sciences companies.  While there is no guarantee they will be hired, similar programs in other states have shown an 80% placement rate.  The salary potential is there for participants with a high school diploma to start as a manufacturing technician making $35,000 and those with college degrees have the potential to start at $40-50,000.

Click here to see the program featured on NJN News.

For more information about the program, please contact Program Coordinator Debbie Katz at 908-526-1200, ext. 8586 or dkatz@raritanval.edu.

This is just one great example of how community colleges can partner with industry to meet their workforce needs. If your organization would like to learn more about how programs can be customized to meet its specific needs, please feel free to contact Julia West Johnson at 908-526-1200, ext. 8319 or jwest@raritanval.edu.