June 27, 2014

Today, Nick enjoyed a tour of Vigor Industrial on North Portland’s Swan Island.

Vigor, which provides shipbuilding, ship repair, and other industrial services, supports our port’s needs while giving our local economy a boost with family-wage jobs.

The company is also making big changes on the island. They will soon build the largest floating dry dock in the nation, and are hard at work building a new tugboat.

In 2008, Portland Community College and Vigor came together to create a better, more direct link from education to jobs – by launching the Portland Community College Swan Island Training Center. The program is so successful, it has over 100 people on a waiting list.

And last year, Vigor partnered with Daimler and Impact Northwest, each donating $100,000 to create Pathways to Manufacturing, a training program offered to local high school students.

Why is Vigor investing in vocational education? Because they need highly-trained workers! Vice President Alan Sprott told Nick that on any given day, Vigor has about 30 job openings. And following their May business merger with Oregon Iron Works, the company expects to offer up to 300 new jobs.

Thanks to Vigor for the tour – and for playing an important role in our local economy.