Two new grants totaling $100,000 to Central Technology Center and Kwikset, from the United States Department of Labor, will provide funding for skills upgrades and re-training for employees being laid off at the Bristow lockset manufacturing plant as parent firm Black & Decker begins closing the plant permanently in 2005. The funds are made available through the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.

"Knowing that they are going to be unemployed soon, many of the Kwikset workers have been hindered in getting a jump on re-training for certain career areas by a requirement that they must first be laid off before the existing worker re-training assistance funds would become available to them. These new grants address that issue and are going to be extremely helpful to the families affected by these lay offs and to those of us trying to help them get ready for new jobs," said Central Tech assistant superintendent Judy Robinson.

A $50,000 grant to Central Tech will provide funding for hiring instructors and for a special program targeting the Bristow plant workers who want to learn new job skills in the nursing field. The new Practical Nursing program will likely begin at the end of March 2005 at the Central Tech Sapulpa campus and, after a year of instruction, will position those taking advantage of the class an opportunity to begin a new career as a Licensed Practical Nurse. The demand for nurses is extremely high with career opportunities available in virtually every county in the state, according to Central Tech officials.

A second $50,000 grant to Kwikset now provides tuition and materials funding for 68 employees who will soon be laid off to begin immediate training in one or more of a dozen different career fields. Other sources of financial assistance for new skills training have often required the worker to wait until they have been laid off before the funds become available to them. Kwikset's Peggy Swinehart says this grant will permit the participants to begin training immediately while they are still employed by Kwikset and possibly avoid downtime between jobs.

Among the on-going classes at Central Tech that workers taking advantage of the Kwikset grant may be eligible for assistance for are: Truck Driver Training, Machining/Manufacturing, Commercial Welding, Automotive Technology, Armed Security Guard, Certified Nursing Assistant, Emergency Medical Technician, Medical Coding and Transcription and Programmable Logical Controls classes.

According to plant officials, many of the Kwikset workers facing layoffs have accepted positions at other Black & Decker owned facilities in Texas , South Carolina and the western United States . It is anticipated however that most of the Bristow manufacturer's workforce will choose to remain in their present homes and search out new employment opportunities in Northeastern Oklahoma .