By Alexander Fern / Assist. News Director

St. Cloud State University was recently awarded two grants, a $260,000 training grant and a $280,000 training grant respectively from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) under the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership.

In return as part of the grant, the university is partnering with local companies to strengthen their workforce and will provide training to help them maintain a competitive edge in their work and continue to meet new demands.

The grants have three set outcomes- current workers gaining skills they can carry with them, the company is gaining a stronger workforce with enhanced skills specific to their industry.

EssilorLuxottixa, Dubow , SCSU, St. Cloud Technical and Community College and Ridgewater Community College are working together to gain increased capacity to develop and deliver new programming that can be used by other businesses.