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MISSION, Texas - Julian Alvarez may have left the Texas Workforce Commission a year ago to go into the private sector but he is still in great demand for all things workforce related.

The senior vice president for Lone Star National Bank not only still gives talks about workforce training, he also helps facilitate key meetings.

For example, he is currently helping Valley Grande Institute for Academic Studies (VGI) secure a unique articulation agreement with South Texas College.

\u201cOur discussion (with Anabell Cardona, president of and CEO of VGI) was, how do I get a student that's going to a career school to actually receive college credit at a local community college? Nobody\u2019s doing that, at least not that I know of,\u201d said Alvarez, in an exclusive interview with the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service.

\u201cAn agreement between two colleges, where one would say, here's a student who graduated as an LVN, a PCT walk next door, and meet with a counselor from South Texas College and say I was informed that my course load here, six hours, nine hours or whatever, articulates into college credit at your school.\u201d

Alvarez was quick to point out, there's no guarantee that such an articulation agreement would afford the VGI student direct entry to STC. \u201cBut what a great thing to do to make school affordable,\u201d he said.

Alvarez said the idea for such an articulation agreement came up whilst he was still labor\u2019s representative for the Texas Workforce Commission. However, he said, the discussions have continued since he has left the agency.

\u201cNow that I'm in the private sector, our goal has always been to make sure that people can make a living wages, that they can be self-sustaining. And those people become depositors and they open up their own business,\u201d Alvarez said.

\u201cSo, it\u2019s just these ideas that people continue to ask me. How would you do this?\u201d

Alvarez offered another example of negotiations he is currently involved in related to workforce development.\xa0

\u201cI won't disclose what school it is, but we're looking at taking an elementary school that's abandoned in a county and we're looking at bringing in six school districts and doing the (workforce) training there because the school districts can't afford the infrastructure for a building for equipment,\u201d Alvarez said.

\u201cSo think about it. If you bring in six schools into one location, where you're converting a vacant building into a training facility, like they have in Corpus with the Craft Learning Center, that\u2019s what we're looking at doing down here (in the Valley). So those are conversations we're having with six various superintendents in the Valley. It's because of my experience and it's because of things that we've done in other parts of the state.\u201d

To read the new stories and watch the news videos of the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service go to www.riograndeguardian.com.