Hearing that Suffolk Community College had won a $1.7 million U.S. Labor Department grant to help workers acquire high-tech manufacturing skills made Ed Pruitt a happy man.
Pruitt, who is part of a local initiative to revitalize manufacturing on Long Island, said the group that is leading that effort -- the Hauppauge Industrial Association and local members of the state group, the Aerospace and Defense Diversification Alliance in Peacetime Transition -- wrote letters to the department in support of the college.
“It’s right down our alley,” said Pruitt, who is a general partner at Cooperating Executives
Organization, a Melville consulting firm. “This grant is much needed to close the skilled-labor gaps we have that are currently affecting many of our companies,” he said.
He said the groups also lent their support to the college in 2005, when it was competing for a $2.4 million Labor Department training grant, which it also won.