The Operating Engineers’ Local 324 training center at 275 Highland Road (M-59) in Howell — the site of the first-ever Livingston County visit by a sitting U.S. president — is getting some help from the state as it builds a new $25 million, 108,000-square-foot training facility in Howell.
The Michigan Strategic Fund has approved $3.25 million in collateral support for the project. The new facility will include a training area, a wash bay, and areas for classrooms and offices. It’s expected to created 370 jobs within two year.
The training center project is among those approved Tuesday, June 27, by the Michigan Economic Development Center. The projects are expected to generate more than $67.1 million in investment across the state, as well as create 577 jobs for Michiganders, according to a release from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
The aid for the Operating Engineers will help support “training and apprenticeship opportunities for our world-class workforce,” Whitmer said. “Together we can continue to send a clear message that everyone is welcome to make it in Michigan.”
For those unfamiliar with what operating engineers do, look no farther than the road projects going on all about us. Operating engineers are heavy equipment operators or mechanics, or surveyors, and they run the cranes, bulldozers, front-end loaders, rollers, backhoes, graders, dredges, hoists, drills, pumps and compressors that underpin large construction projects.
In a Livingston County first, President Joe Biden visited the Operating Engineers’ Howell center in October 2021 when he kicked off a national tour to support his Build Back Better legislation as it was being wrangled over in Washington, D.C. His visit drew stars of Michigan’s Democratic Party including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, as well as U.S. Reps Andy Levin of Bloomfield Township, Dan Kildee of Flint Township, and Debbie Dingell of Dearborn. It also drew the protests of area Republicans.
You can read our coverage of the presidential visit by clicking here.
