On Wednesday, June 25, 2025, Buckeye Hills Career Center (BHCC) held a ribbon cutting ceremony celebrating the completion of two new facilities on its main campus – a Commercial Driving License (CDL) & Heavy Diesel Mechanics Complex and an Electrical Trades Building Complex.

“Today, we proudly unveil two transformative facilities that will shape the future of Southeastern Ohio,” Jamie Nash, BHCC Superintendent shared. “These two facilities together symbolize more than expansion. They represent hope, opportunity, and a bold commitment to workforce readiness.”

The CDL & Heavy Diesel Mechanics Complex includes a 9,256 square-foot instructional facility with modern lab bays designed to replicate real-world conditions, as well as a 24,000 square-foot CDL pad. The center will provide approximately 100 students annually with immersive, hands-on training and will be home to BHCC’s CDL program and Ag & Heavy Equipment Technician program.

The project was made possible thanks to a $1.5 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission’s (ARC) Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER) program in partnership with the Governor’s Office of Appalachia.

John Carey, the Director of the Governor’s Office of Appalachia, spoke to the audience, sharing his excitement about the project’s journey from groundbreaking to the current ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“It’s about partnerships,” Gayle Manchin, Federal Co-Chair for the Appalachian Regional Commission shared. “It’s about working together as educators, legislators, business, and industry. It’s how we work together that makes good things happen. When people are talking with each other, sharing, growing together, developing programs, then you see great things like this happen.”

The Electrical Trades Building Complex includes a 7,333 square-foot facility with five specialized labs and climbing bay and will provide over 100 students annually with hands-on training in Telecommunications, Broadband, Power Lineman, and Heavy Equipment Operation.

BHCC received over $3.7 million from the State of Ohio’s Career Tech Construction Grant for the project.

“This isn’t just a ribbon cutting. It’s a pivotal moment for this community. Because every student that goes through these building will be another student entering your workforce,” Dee Smith, Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Career-Technical Education, shared. “It’s moments like these that mark the opening of not just a new space, but the celebration of the vision and the work that it’s taken to get here. This is for the students and the families in this community. What stands behind a ribbon cutting isn’t just buildings and equipment, it’s people working together.”

“Today, we celebrate not just the completion of buildings, but the creation of pathways — for students, for families, for our entire region,” Superintendent Nash shared. “These projects are a testament to what’s possible when educators, employers, policymakers, and communities come together in service of a shared vision.”

Classes are expected to begin in the new facilities in August 2025.