rick rajaie, vice president of operations for foxconn ev, north america, left, and ysu president jim tressel shake hands after signing paperwork wednesday signaling intent for the university and foxconn to design and launch a national electric-vehicle workforce training and innovation center in the Lordstown area.

YOUNGSTOWN — The vision for a proposed electric-vehicle workforce training and innovation center — the centerpiece of a plan to cast the Mahoning Valley as a national hub of EV workforce development excellence — is for it to be in Lordstown, perhaps at Foxconn’s auto assembly campus.

“We are looking at all options right now. I think the most important thing is we have to bring all of the national stakeholders together over the next 90 days to hear their vision, hear their wants and needs a little differently before we land on where we are going to go,” said Jennifer Oddo, executive director of Youngstown State University’s Division of Workforce Education and Innovation.

“What is important for our vision is that we want to get something done quickly. It may be an interim process. We may have a phase one where maybe we secure some buildings that are already there as we think about what phase two looks like.”

The staged approach, she said, is “because we don’t want to wait. We know the industry won’t wait and they need the talent now.”

Oddo’s comments Wednesday followed the formal announcement that YSU and Foxconn intend to establish a partnership to design and launch the center, which will help the emerging EV industry build and scale a sustainable workforce around advanced manufacturing, energy storage and other integrated technology solutions, such as artificial intelligence, 5G and cybersecurity.

MEMORANDUM

YSU and Foxconn intend to execute a formal memorandum of understanding and partnership in the next few months.

That, said Rick Rajaie, vice president of operations for Foxconn EV North America, would be the framework to project, in part, the number of recruits, number of buildings, facilities and investment into the center.

Foxconn will involve its contract manufacturing partners, said Rajaie, which so far include Lordstown Motors Corp., and California-based Monarch Tractor and INDIEV Inc., as well as some suppliers “and some others that we are in serious negotiations to localize their facilities at our campus.”

The center would be available to traditional college students or anyone else wanting to change careers into the EV industry, but needs training. Internships and externships also are planned.

“We are going to be in so much shortage of workforce … we have to be unconventional. We do not have the luxury of just training local students here and hope for the best. We have to exercise and entertain all options,” Rajaie said.

It’s estimated the investment needs to be $65 million to $70 million “to do it right,” Oddo said, with the help of public / private partnerships and funding support from the state and federal governments over the next couple years.

In addition to Foxconn’s support, the intent for the center will be to leverage private funding from General Motors that YSU received in 2021 as part of $12 million settlement the automaker made with the state for breaking job creation and retention tax credit agreements for its former Lordstown small car assembly plant.

Part of the funding — $5 million — was given to YSU to invest in workforce development in partnership with Eastern Gateway Community College.

VOLTAGE VALLEY

The Mahoning Valley, also known as Voltage Valley because of the rapidly developing EV and energy storage industries, is experiencing a generational shift in new opportunities, said YSU President Jim Tressel, from Foxconn to Ultium Cells, which is a joint venture of GM and South Korea’s LG Energy Solutions to mass produce EV battery cells.

Other industry developments in Ohio include investments by Ford at plants in Elyria and Toledo, an EV battery plant outside Columbus that’s a partnership between Honda and LG Energy Solution and the Intel semiconductor plant planned for Licking County.

“The only way we will seize this moment is to think big, and that is the beauty of this division (Workforce Education and Innovation). I promise you they are always thinking big, acting boldly and working together with all of the partners we have here today to make sure we break down geographic and institutional silos that give everyone access, opportunities to participate in good-paying jobs in this industry,” Tressel said.

Oddo said, “It’s all happening right here in Ohio, and it’s up to us to seize the moment, and today is about progressing one step forward to make Ohio, to make the Youngstown-Warren Voltage Valley the national hub for electric vehicles.”

The U.S. Department of Energy earlier this year commissioned YSU to conduct a national and regional labor market assessment of the energy storage industry for electric vehicles.

Its findings strongly suggest the need for a national workforce center to accelerate the adoption of programs such as registered apprenticeship, stackable industry credentials and new applied learning models that address ever-changing industry needs, according to Oddo.

“The feedback was very, very clear,” she said. “They need a national hub. They need a one-stop shop to go to understand how to get their workforce trained, how do I connect with applied research, how do I get access to funding to bring my product to market? This one-stop shop is really what we are creating here today.”

rselak@tribtoday.com