Global Changes Create Regional Boom

The advancement of the expansion of the Panama Canal will realign receipt of goods within the United States.  The need for major distribution centers in the Southeast United States is growing. For example, Amazon.com is building a warehouse in South Carolina that will create more than 1,200 jobs.  Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida are among the states that will need trained personnel.  With the collaborative efforts of MHIA, the Material Handling Education Foundation, local and national businesses, and school systems, the training laboratories established through the Technical Career Education Program will provide a platform for advancement of trained a workforce for the future.

It's not classic IT training, but with all the talk of business alignment in the past few years, this kind of operations training is where the rubber meets the road. As every CIO knows, IT has penetrated every part of the enterprise. Now, even our low-tech warehouse workers have gone high tech.

Victoria Wheeler is Executive Director of the Material Handling Education Foundation, Inc. Learn more about the Technical Career Education Program through www.mhia.org/tcep. Victoria can be reached at vwheeler@mhia.org