As a state senator, Lloyd K. Smucker didn’t represent Berks County.
But his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in November changed that for the Lancaster Republican. And now, he’s doing his best to acclimate himself with his new coverage area.
Monday afternoon he stopped by Reading Area Community College as part of that effort.
“I had heard a lot of great things about it,” he said following his first tour of the city campus. “It’s exciting to see all that’s happening here. I’m very impressed.”
Smucker said he’s eager to support the efforts of RACC and other institutions working to prepare students for today’s workforce, filling the need for skilled, trained workers.
“I think there’s such a need for this today,” Smucker said of the college’s workforce training programs.
Of special interest to Smucker was a tour of the Schmidt Training and Technology Center, where he chatted with instructors and students in the manufacturing technology program and visited the new chemistry and physics labs that are under construction.
Smucker said he’s not sure exactly what he can do in his new position to support places such as RACC, saying he’s been in the job for only nine weeks. But he said he’s been put on the Education Workforce Committee and Subcommittee for Higher Education, and that Congress will soon be reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.
Smucker said he plans to ensure that the act promotes workforce training.
“We need to be building the kind of system that is preparing our students for the jobs of our economy,” he said.
