[caption id="attachment_176280" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Fairfax, Prince William] announces a new data center lab at the Northern Virginia Community College Woodbridge Campus. [Photo: Rick Horner][/caption]

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Fairfax, Prince William) announced the opening of a new Data Center Lab at the Woodbridge Campus of Northern Virginia Community College.

Officials gathered Wednesday, March 23, to discuss data center training at the campus' workforce development center. College President Dr. Anne Kress praised  Connolly for his help procuring $5.1 million in funding for the data center lab.

Connolly worked alongside Virginia Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Democrats, to obtain the funding.

"We are here to celebrate an important investment in our future," said Connolly. "To be a great community and a successful country, we have to invest in three things: education, workforce, and infrastructure."

The new data center lab will be built at the Woodbridge campus' Workforce Development Center, a 55,000 square-foot facility that cost $29 million when it opened in 2016. It will teach students the ins and outs of the data center industry, comprised of server farms that power the internet.

Prince William County is at the forefront of a significant expansion of data centers. A proposed Prince William Digital Gateway project, 2,130 acres, more than 800 times larger than Potomac Mills mall, near the Manassas Battlefield National Park, would be the home for data centers in the county.

Later this year, the Board of County Supervisors is expected to decide whether to update its comprehensive, long-range land-use plan to accommodate the project. Several data center companies have already taken interest and filed applications to rezone the land to build new campuses.

Returning the favor, Connolly praised Virginia community colleges, and Northern Virginia Community College in particular, as an essential investment in the future as a gateway to a four-year college and as a place of workplace development.

Connolly said he is disappointed a free community college program that had been a part of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better bill is dead.

Connolly was one of many guest speakers leading up to a panel discussion called Building the Technology Workforce of the Future, which focused on the value of workforce development for data center operations. Speakers included campus provost Dr. Sam Hill, Executive Director of the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development Buddy Rizer, and Neabsco District Supervisor Victor Angry.

The panelists discussed various aspects of the value of workforce development to sectors such as data center operations. One speaker, Sabey Data Centers General Manager Michael Whitlock, briefly discussed the partnership between his company and Northern Virginia Community College, which offers 10-week internships to students interested in seeking employment in data centers.

Whitlock also talked about approaching middle and high schools in the county with programs that could provide a path to work in data centers.

Another panelist, Northern Virginia Community College graduate and data center technician with Aligned Data Centers, talked about her experience getting into the field through the Northern Virginia Community College workforce development program and her experiences as a woman entering a STEM field.

After the panel, attendees were invited to take a tour of the various classes available through Northern Virginia Community College's Workforce Development Program. The Woodbridge Campus is home to Northern Virginia Community College's development programs in HVAC repair, cybersecurity, and film and cinema.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 77 percent of employers report that their employees gained skills in high-demand industries such as healthcare, infrastructure, and information technology through workforce development programs.

According to the same study, 74 percent of employers report a mismatch between the skills they need and their workers despite millions of job openings around the country.