How Ford plans to build out workforce development curriculum for Blue Oval City

As Ford Motor Company mapped out plans for the $5.6 billion electric vehicle and battery campus at the Megasite of West Tennessee, one priority became clear — a trained workforce ready for the assembly line.

To meet that need, the Detroit automaker is hoping to roll out customized curriculum for K-12 and technical college students focused on skills necessary to produce electric trucks and batteries, Lisa Drake, Ford's chief operations officer in North America, said Tuesday during an interview with The Tennessean.

Ford announced the West Tennessee investment in late September. Gov. Bill Lee, who called it the "single-largest investment in state history," convened a special session soon afterward for lawmakers to approve an $884 million package to help sweeten the deal.

The project, which could bring roughly 5,800 jobs, is expected to break ground in early 2022 and reach completion in 2025.

Tennessee lawmakers have agreed to spend $40 million to build a Tennessee College of Applied Technology near the megasite in Haywood County to address the demand for workers. 

Ford, which has been in talks with the state Department of Education and Department of Labor and Workforce Development, hopes to design courses tailor-made for the company's needs, Drake said. The company could even install equipment that mirrors a Ford assembly plant, she said.

"Can you imagine all your children knowing exactly how battery works?" Drake said at a public affairs conference hosted by the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce in Nashville.

"They are trying to find an inventory of existing technical training programs that we can tap into right away," Drake said during the interview. "We want to start training sometime in the next year (or) the beginning of 2023."

The company could begin readying high school students for a path into the Ford plant, Drake said.

"Those ninth-grade individuals, when they graduate in four years, this plant will be open," she said. "That is probably the first population we want to target in high school."

Drake also mentioned the possibility at the Tuesday event. . She was joined by former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who serves as Ford's vice president of policy, and former federal prosecutor and law professor Steven Croley, who serves as Ford's chief policy officer.

Investment in workforce development could benefit Tennessee for decades to come, Huntsman said at the event.

"The opportunity for everyone here to sit back and imagine the best template, the best practices for education for all citizens of the state is a huge gift," he said.

Faced with expected population growth once the site is up and running, Drake said the company currently has no plans to house its workers. Instead, cities in the area are planning ahead for the housing needs, she said.

The company itself has not made any commitment to hire a certain percentage of local workers, Drake said. Nor does it have plans yet to offer scholarships or incentives to attract workers. But Ford's philanthropic arm, Ford Fund, could in the future roll out plans to diversify the workforce by serving the "underserved communities," she said.

Looking ahead, Drake said the company must first size up its wastewater treatment plant, map out roadways in the area and calculate the environmental impact of the facilities.

When asked if the facilities will be energy-efficient, Drake said the company has been in talks with solar farms and hopes to harness geothermal energy from the Memphis Sand Aquifur beneath the site to cool down the facilities. The ultimate goal, she said, is to be "carbon neutral."

"Our vision is to be carbon neutral by the start of production for the assembly site," she said.

Reach Yue Stella Yu at yyu@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @bystellayu_tnsn.

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