Florida Transforming Resources for Accelerated Degrees & Employment (Florida TRADE)

The mission of the Florida TRADE program is to improve upon Florida's existing training and education system in advanced manufacturing by aligning its vast resources and partnerships and offering wide access to training that will help address the growing critical skilled workforce shortage faced by the state's manufacturing industry and related industry clusters. The core of Florida TRADE was developed using several evidence-based models and is designed to provide short-term certification training that results in stackable or latticed industry specific credentials that articulate statewide to AS degree programs, including Engineering Technology, and up the educational pathway. The Florida TRADE consortium has listened to the needs of advanced manufacturing businesses by targeting industry certification training in areas that support the skills required to fill some of the top jobs facing a critical shortage across Florida: welders; CNC machinists; engineers; quality assurance/inspection officers; and master mechanics and technicians.The Florida TRADE program is an opportunity to share existing curricula that can be deployed in a non-traditional academic environment. Training will be delivered in a hybrid fashion: online through a system called NTER (National Training & Education Resource) and followed by hands-on application training at the local college, business or community partner site. By using this system, our consortium will be ahead of the class for curricula sharing among colleges and for providing statewide access to students. Program curricula will align with the standards of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and will be packaged for participants to first earn a nationally recognized work credential as an assessment, followed by accelerated industry specific training and credentialing, then followed by an internship and lastly resulting in a job, within a six month time period.