For over 40 years, Quick Start has provided free, customized workforce training to qualified businesses in Georgia.  Quick Start delivers comprehensive workforce training services, from pre-employment assessment and training that helps companies select the best candidates to job-specific training that delivers the right skills for your business needs.  These services have been identified and recognized by national publications such as Fortune, Training and Site Selection magazines. Quick Start ensures that companies throughout Georgia receive consistent, professional service.  Quick Start also administers the Certified Economic Developer Training program, through which all technical college economic development professionals and Quick Start staff and directors receive ongoing professional training.

Today, the program is one of the state’s greatest assets for supporting new and expanding industries.  Quick Start delivers training in locations that best suit the company whether that is in classrooms, mobile labs or directly on the plant floor.  

Quick Start’s experience includes training workers to assemble intricate aircraft components, grow bacteria to produce vaccines, manufacture a wide array of plastic and metal products, process foods from cookies to sports drinks, and field calls from customers as diverse as online investors, diagnostic equipment users and home warranty holders.

Quick Start also works closely with its partners in the Technical College System of Georgia through an established network.  Georgia’s technical colleges provide customized contract training for continuing business support after your start-up or expansion is complete.  

For additional information, please see www.georgiaquickstart.org.

The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) operates 53 Career Centers throughout the state that offer a wide range of services to both job seekers and employers. The Centers provide job seekers the latest tools to find and keep the right job. Employers can be assisted in recruiting new employees through a national job listing network, applicant screening, and space in the centers to conduct testing and employment interviews.

The DOL Career Center in Athens serves Oconee County.  The center is located at 150 Evelyn C. Neely Drive, Athens, GA  30601.  You may reach the facility at (706) 583-2550.

For the past 45 years, Athens Technical College (ATC) has served the citizens in its service area by providing quality educational programs. Whether the student’s goal is to earn a certificate, diploma, or associate’s degree, ATC has over 34 programs in business, health, technical, and manufacturing-related majors. ATC offers many courses through distance learning delivery systems, and the College is noted for its application and integration of technology into the teaching/learning process.

Additional information on Athens Technical College can be found at www.athenstech.edu.

The University of Georgia is a land-grant and sea-grant university with state-wide commitments and responsibilities.  The University serves as the state's flagship institution of higher learning. It is the state's oldest, most comprehensive and most diversified institution of higher education. UGA seeks to equip the community, state, nation, and world with graduates possessing skills to make a substantial impact. 

Drawing from the basic tenets on which the University was formed, the mission of the University is exhibited throughout the state.  Cooperative extension, continuing education, public service, experiment stations and technology transfer each contribute to economic, social, and community development in Georgia.

UGA seeks to complement the state's changing educational, social and economic needs. To this end, the University’s Small Business Development Center was established in 1977 as one of the first such programs in the country. The program annually provides hundreds of small businesses and prospective entrepreneurs with counseling, management training, continuing education, alumni networking and advocacy.  The University also created a new position, Vice President of Economic Development, to assist communities across the state with issues affecting economic development. 

For additional information, please visit www.uga.edu.

Serving Northeast Georgia since 1964, Gainesville State College is a non-residential unit of the University System of Georgia.  Gainesville State College operates a satellite campus in Oconee County.  Students are drawn primarily from the increasingly diverse Northeast Georgia area.

Gainesville State College integrates academic and extra-curricular activities in order to emphasize development of the “whole person."  With more than 85 percent of the College’s alumni living and working in Northeast Georgia, the College is truly an integral part of the community and the community has continually provided generous support for the College’s programs.

This close relationship with the community has strengthened a comprehensive Continuing Education program, which supports professional and vocational interests of area citizens and reflects the lifelong learning philosophy of the institution.