More than $600,000 in employee training money is still available for eligible California employers through the El Camino College Business Training Center (BTC), Paul Edward, director of organizational training and development, said.
With that money, the BTC can train local company’s employees in skills that range from soldering to leadership.
“We pay the instructor, we pay for the materials and then we get reimbursed from the state through the Employment Training Panel (ETP),” Edward said.
But while the ETP has run out of funding, the BTC still has finances.
“The reason we still have money is because we have spent the last six months building up our grant-based money,” Edward said.
In order for local companies to qualify for the BTC’s services, they must be in one of the target industries, Edwards said.
“California decides annually what the target industries are and they receive priority,” Edwards said. “Right now, the target industries are the manufacturing, film, TV, environmental technologies and anything that has out-of-state competition.”
It is important for companies to have out-of-state competition because one of the ETP’s main goals is to keep California’s businesses and employees in California, Edward said.

With the recent downturn in the economy, the BTC has experienced an increase in people attending its workshops, Jose Anaya, dean of Community College Advancement, said.
“We are inundated, which is a good thing,” Anaya said. “Normally, our workshops will hold 20 to 25 people, but (in a recent workshop) we had 70 people.”
Even with the influx of people at its workshop, the BTC still has the resources to accommodate more businesses.
“Tesla Motors, the electrical car company, is moving into the L.A. area so we’re hoping to train some of their workers,” Anaya said.
The BTC is working with a lot of green companies like Tesla Motors at the moment because environmental technologies are one of the ETP’s target industries and the BTC is ahead of the curve in training for that area, Anaya said.
“We’re doing training for companies that are installing solar panels, solar thermal systems and we’re looking at opportunities for weatherization. (Alternative energy training) is a part of our business that is really taking off,” Anaya said.
The BTC is also focused on helping businesses expand by teaching them how to export their goods and services through its Export Enabler Plan, Anaya said.
“We first evaluate the company and see if they are ready to export products. If they are, we help them and if they aren’t we prepare them,” Anaya said.
For more information on the BTC, interested persons may call it at 310-973-3178 or log on to its Web site at www.businessassist.org.