Excitement filled the chilly Thursday morning air as area leaders, educators, students and the North Dakota's lieutenant governor gathered at Williston State College for the groundbreaking of a new Career and Technical Education building.

Over 50 people braved the wind-swept building site east of the Art Wood Building and the Crighton Building parking lot. Primary speakers at the groundbreaking were WSC President Raymond Nadolny, Williston Mayor Ward Koeser, Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple and Rep. Bob Skarphol, R-Tioga. Trenton Schools Superintendent Laurie Olson and Dwight Crabtree, board member of the North Dakota Association for Career and Technical Education, also spoke Thursday.

Koeser said how pleased he is with the partnership between the city, university and state representatives to make the project a reality.

"Soon we will receive the benefits of this facility. Good days are ahead," said Koeser.

Dalrymple said the CTE building is a great project that should do a lot to help train more people in northwestern North Dakota for the high-demand jobs in the region and state. He also said it's important to allow students to have a good transition from high school to college to advance their education. "This project is a wonderful example of that," said Dalrymple.

Dalrymple added the new building should drastically improve the ability to serve a previously under-served area in training facilities. He said having a well-trained local workforce ensures the region can continue to produce a large number of people to get high-quality jobs quickly after completing their training.

"These are the areas where we know the jobs of the future are going to take place," said Dalrymple.

Nadolny is thrilled to see one of the new building projects at WSC finally under way.

Nadolny thanked everyone who had worked to make the project possible, from staff, city officials, and the area legislative members.

Nadolny thanked Workforce Dean David Richter for his hard work with the project and gave special thanks Skarphol, who spearheaded getting the $5 million in state funds into the higher education budget in the last legislative session. The remaining $1 million was raised locally.

"We have made the right investment at the right time," said Nadolny.

He added through WSC's workforce training programs, over 2,000 people have been trained so far this year, "making TrainND the premier workforce training entity in the region."

Skarphol said going into the last legislative session, he knew there was going to be a lot of potential dollars to spend and a lot of project proposals submitted. Skarphol said the CTE building proposal for WSC made sense because the whole northwestern region of the state is without such a facility.

He knew once the WSC project was brought to his attention, it would be a very sensible project, especially after hearing from private business leaders in a conference committee meeting before the session.

"I asked what is the highest priority you see and they immediately told me 'triple the budget for CTE training,'" said Skarphol.

Skarphol said before getting the funding for the CTE building, he'd never met Nadolny, "but I had his cell number," joked Skarphol. When he'd secured the $5 million in state funds, he called Nadolny to tell him and also said he'd be paying close attention to how the facility turns out.

"I don't just want this to be a state-of-the-art facility. I expect this to become a standard-bearer, to set a higher bar for the region and the state," said Skarpohl.

Construction for the 60,000 square-foot facility is to begin immediately. The project is to be done by late summer and open to students in time for the fall 2010 semester.