Lamar State College Port Arthur celebrated the opening of its Commercial Driver Education and Examination Center Friday with local and state dignitaries ranging from Jefferson County Commissioner Michael Sinegal to Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration Jorge Ayala to Speaker of the House Dade Phelan.
They represented the layers of support at the local, state and federal level that helped make the new center a reality.
“This is a birthday party of something that’s been in a gestational period for two years,” the college’s Workforce Development and Continuing Education Vice President Ben Stafford told the crowd assembled beneath the shaded training area.
That shade was made possible by a late contribution from the Temple Foundation, a Texas organization striving to help communities grow and thrive.
Chief Executive Officer Wynn Rosser said he was happy the board approved providing funding for the canopy coverings in the outdoor testing and training areas, which along with the educational building took the facility from what was originally going to be a large parking lot to a state-of-the art training and testing center.
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Lamar Port Arthur’s CDL center is also the largest of its kind in the state of Texas. The training facility also includes a large fleet of 12 trucks and eight trailers ranging from tanks to box and flatbed trailers, allowing “students to get a diversity in training,” Stafford said.
And perhaps no other state in the nation has such a need for the level of training for new commercial drivers that the facility will provide than Texas.
“Texas leads the nation in transportation employment and education,” Phelan said. “We deserve a center to support that, and now we have it.”
Roughly 20,000 drivers each year will make their way through the center for training or licensing examinations – numbers that are needed as the demand for drivers and the number of older drivers retiring out of the workforce, grows, he said.
“This is going to transform the landscape of commercial driving in the state of Texas,” Phelan said. “Those drivers are the lifeline that keeps our economy moving, connects communities and fuels prosperity. We depend on commercial drivers to get products.”
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At no time did the country realize how important the role of commercial drivers is than during the pandemic, when supply chain issues and transporting goods to communities took center stage, along with the rise in prices that resulted from a shortage of drivers.
That was a sentiment echoed by Sinegal, who said it was a “no brainer” when the commissioners court was asked to support the project and help the college secure the land required for the new facility.
“This isn’t just big, this is huge,” Sinegal said.
Some supporters of the project, like Ayala, said the mission of the CDL center held personal significance.
“My father and brother-in-law were life-long truck drivers,” he said. “I’m here because of the livelihood that trucking provided that allowed me to go to college.”
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Commercial driving changed his life, and “this program will transform the lives of its students.”
Commercial driving is more than just a job, Phelan said. “This is a career, and I look forward to the thousands of drivers that will be educated at this center.”
Following the ceremony, attendees were invited to tour the grounds and try out the driving simulators inside the training lab.
The computer simulation offers experience in bus driving as well as truck driving and can provide a virtual experience on the road in a variety of weather conditions and other hazards, including a blow-out.
Jesus Acosta, Campus Director at Bob Hope High School, was among those trying out the simulators under direction of CDL Director James Griffin.
“We want to get some of our kids out here to get CDL’s,” Acosta said.
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