SWCC hosts groundbreaking for CDL addition

After almost a year of work and planning, Southwestern Community College held the groundbreaking for their new commercial driver’s license (CDL) program Thursday morning.

SWCC first moved toward adding a CDL program after Governor Kim Reynolds announced a CDL Infrastructure Grant Program in early autumn of 2023. SWCC was awarded $665,000 in October, along with nine other Iowa community colleges. This grant is being used to do a building addition and a driving range at the Agriculture Sciences Center.

SWCC Director of Continuing Education and Business Training Kim Oaks shared the history of CDL training at the college.

“We partnered with Northland CDL out of Mason City, they partnered with a lot of community colleges several years ago, and they came down, brought the equipment, that kind of stuff,” Oaks said. “We were able to do a train and test type of training here and provide a lot of opportunity for a lot of our area employers. We did that for approximately seven years, providing Class A or Class B, and we also did do a couple of school bus driver trainings at the time.”

However, SWCC’s CDL training ended in 2022 with the addition of the entry level driver training requirement from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Starting mid-2023, Oaks and SWCC Vice President of Economic Development Wayne Pantini started looking at other Iowa community colleges’ CDL programs for inspiration.

“We traveled up to Northwest Community College to visit with their faculty and instructors and to learn about their program that they have, to learn from that and take away from that, what can we do to get started here,” Pantini said. “On that drive back, we got an email that this grant opportunity came out. The timing was perfect.”

SWCC is working with Denovo Construction Solutions and Premier Construction Services to complete the addition, with plans to begin CDL courses this fall. Work on the facility is expected to begin the first week of July.

“We at the college very much so look forward to the day when we will have the opportunity to formally welcome our students into our classrooms and labs for CDL training,” SWCC President Lindsay Stoaks said. “Working together, we will continue to enhance opportunities for businesses and industries throughout our communities across this region.”