LIVING GREEN
ENERGY
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ED DRONDOSKI
A conference room will offer entrepreneurs a place to meet with clients.
PHOTO PROVIDED
Two men work on construction of the nuclear power simulator in the
nuclear power training lab.
in teams, just as they will in their careers. One lab will train
technicians for the nuclear energy industry.
The Brown Center also offers programs and services to students
who want to use what they have learned to start businesses
as well as helping those who are already in business.
The Innovation Incubator will provide office and conference
room space for newly fledged enterprises.
“Students will work together from different disciplines,
and we’ll see a merging of education with research and business
applications,” says Michelle Abaldo, the college’s director
of Institutional Advancement.
The college focuses heavily on training students for careers,
often in jobs that stimulate the local economy but also enable
them to find work in other parts of the country.
The National Science Foundation took notice and gave
IRSC two grants. One was for $3.1 million to set up the
Regional Center for Nuclear Education and Training and
develop a plan for training people at colleges throughout the
southeastern states to work in the nuclear industry. RCNET
training programs will help meet the national demand for
41,000 skilled nuclear employees by 2030, with more than
half the nuclear energy job openings in the southeast.
TRAINING FOR JOBS
In the Brown Center, the college has a two-story nuclear
facility training lab with a simulated flow-loop that is exactly
like the real thing except for the radiation. Students will train
for jobs at Florida Power & Light’s nuclear power plant on
South Hutchinson Island and elsewhere.
The second grant, $70,000 from the National Science
Foundation, allows the college to plan a Southeast Regional
Center for Optics and Photonics Education and Training to