Longview City Manager Ed Ivey has said it is a good idea because talks with employers who consider locating in the city's Mint Farm Industrial Park always seem to come down to workforce issues. LCC president Jim McLaughlin has said such a facility would send a strong message that Longview cares about its economic future.

Neither Ivey nor McLaughlin was immediately available for comment Thursday morning. The training center would reportedly include classrooms, computer labs and a large gathering room for business functions. The goal is to open the facility by 2005.

If it happens, the training center would help boost some already enviable placement statistics for Lower Columbia College. LCC says it has the highest employment rate within nine months of graduation – 89% -- of any community college in the state In part hat is due to a whopping 64% of Washington employers having difficulty finding qualified employees, according to the Washington State Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board.

LCC already has a growing relationship with area employers. Three years ago, it expanded its high-tech training program by creating a Business & Industry Center to keep pace with a workplace demanding higher levels of computer-savvy workers. As a result, it is now said to be hand-picking final candidates for supervisory roles at Toyocom, a Japanese company building a factory at Mint Farm that will produce synthetic quartz crystal bricks used in cellular phones. Toyocom reportedly asked about both education and technical support from LCC before it cemented its deal with the city.