YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University, through its Center for Workforce Education and Innovation, plans to use part of $5 million from General Motors to invest in programs and services that zero in on inclusion and equality to best serve the unemployed and underemployed.

“We need to remove the barriers to help those individuals to compete and to win in what we call the race to employability,” said Jennifer Oddo, executive director of strategic workforce education and innovation at YSU.

Some of the money also will be spent on the creation of the YSU Energy Storage Innovation and Training Center to support emerging technology industries in the Mahoning Valley by helping provide a capable workforce.

The innovation and training center for now remains in the concept and development stage, but YSU president Jim Tressel envisions a brick-and-mortar facility closer to Voltage Valley, the name given to Trumbull and Mahoning counties because of the investments in energy storage and electric vehicle industries.

Ground Zero for Voltage Valley is Lordstown, where General Motors is partner with South Korea’s LG Chem to build a $2.3 billion plant to mass produce electric vehicle battery cells and where Lordstown Motors Corp. is preparing to launch its electric truck, the Endurance, from where GM made automobiles for 53 years.

Tressel said he sees the innovation and training center as part of the natural evolution of YSU’s Excellence Training Center — high-tech space for machining, additive manufacturing, robotics, automation and more — that’s under construction at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Commerce Street.

Tressel, Oddo and other YSU, education and economic development officials met there Tuesday with Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and Lydia Mihalik, director of Ohio Development Services Agency, to highlight the advancements and initiatives in workforce development happening in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.

“So there will be an evolution,” said Tressel on the possibility of a physical energy storage innovation and training center. “What we can do here are a variety of things. The things that we need trained that we can’t do here, our thought process is to have a physical center out closer to Voltage Valley there and put some of things (there) that aren’t part of this curriculum … .”

YSU is taking a holistic approach, said Oddo, who leads the workforce education and innovation center that provides individuals digital access and literacy, education and training and pathways to employment.

“It’s actually toward creating workforce strategies around all in-demand skills,” Oddo said. “When you look at the in-demand needs, it’s around enhanced manufacturing, IT, energy storage and other areas as well.”

GM’s $12 million local investment is part of a settlement it made with the state for breaking tax-credit agreements when it closed its former automaking plant in Lordstown in March 2019.

Some of the other funding for YSU will be used on a virtual career fair in partnership with Ultium Cells LLC, the GM / LG Chem plant, and JobsOhio, the state’s nonprofit economic development agency, to connect the community with career pathways, training and jobs.

Workforce development spending was key in talks with GM on its repayment of the tax credits.

“When we get into any conversation with any business about expanding or growing in Ohio, it’s always the first question, it’s not taxes. It’s can you provide them with the skills that I need,” said Husted. “I talk with communities every day that say that we need more jobs and I ask them, if we bring 100 jobs here, and they require this kind of skill, could they find the people? The answer, many times, is no. We don’t ever want that to be the case here. If we’re going to have Voltage Valley, if we are going to have additive manufacturing, then we need to be able to answer that question when any employer calls, yes we have the workforce.”