BAKER CITY — Employees from the Baker Technical Institute will train employees from the California Department of Transportation to operate equipment used in highway construction and repair. Caltrans picked the Baker Technical Institute, which is based at the Baker High School campus, to supply trainers for an academy that is scheduled to start this month in Sacramento.

Another academy is scheduled later in 2023, said Doug Dalton, BTI president.

Each academy will include five weeks of hands-on training. Participants will work in classroom, virtual reality and field situations as they learn to operate equipment.

The 20 students in each academy will then have a chance to demonstrate their skills to California contractors that bid on Caltrans projects.

“Our entire team is honored to be part of such an amazing project,” Dalton said in a press release. “This program exemplifies what can be accomplished with an innovative approach to collaboration between agencies. Programs like this can put the participants’ lives on a new trajectory and into a respected career field while building a much needed pipeline of trained workers for employees who desperately need them.”

Dalton said BTI will supply about 15 trainers for each academy. Caltrans will pay BTI a little over $14,000 per student, or about $280,000 for each academy.

Caltrans is working with Highlands Comunity Charter School in California and the Federal Highway Administration, as well as BTI, on the training academy.

The goal is to train workers for heavy highway construction projects, an industry that has a significant shortage, according to the BTI press release.

“This training could not come at a better time as California continues to make major progress to rebuild, revitalize and reimagine our infrastructure to support a cleaner, safer and more equitable transportation system, where access to skilled workers will be critical, especially if it will be successful and sustainable,” said David DeLuyz, associate director of the Caltrans Office of Civil Rights.