Latest news with #GulfCoastGuarantee
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Gulf Coast State College introduces new hospitality scholarships
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) – Gulf Coast State College (GCSC) launches two new scholarships through its Hilton Hospitality Management and Tourism Program. GCSC officials said the college plans to use these scholarships to ease students' journeys into one of the most people-centered industries: hospitality. 'Hospitality is a huge industry with local and global potential. We want to help more students see it as a real career option, and give them the support to get started,' Katherine Griffin Boatwright Endowed Chair for Hospitality Management & Tourism at GCSC, Paul Bonnette, said. Students can qualify in two ways. The Hospitality Rockstars Scholarship is for high school graduates pursuing a degree in hospitality, and the Hospitality Heroes Scholarship is for current hospitality workers or GCSC students building on their experience. Each scholarship offers $500 per semester, gifted from Ms. Julie Hilton and the Hilton family, to help with tuition costs. They require six credit hours a semester for eligibility. These awards can be used alongside other financial aid, such as the Gulf Coast Guarantee and other scholarships. Click here to learn more. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bay EDA: Creating quality jobs through quality education
BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – The Bay Economic Development Association has been working diligently to bring several aerospace and manufacturing ventures to Bay County. We've covered the developing inspire project happening through FSU Panama City, and IAG Aero group. Economic leaders have several other projects they're working to secure. The turnouts for Bay EDA meetings continue to grow, like the list of potential businesses considering our area. Local American Red Cross volunteers help prevent house fires across the Panhandle One of those major opportunities is an aerospace company dubbed 'Project Opal.' 'They're looking at a 130-acre site in Venture Crossings, which is at the airport campus. It'd be 350 jobs and one billion capital investment. A truly high-tech game-changing project for us,' says Becca Hardin, Bay EDA's President and CEO. Hardin says as 'Opal' whittles down its site list, Bay County continues to make the down to 3 sites in Florida, one in Texas, and one in Louisiana. 'We hope to find out who this final selection is going to be, hopefully by the end of the week or early next week,' says Hardin. Hardin says the focus is on quality. 'For the incentive packages that we offer the company doesn't qualify for incentives if they don't pay at least 115% of our average wage and if you look at data over the past five years because of the projects that we've helped to grow here, we've seen the average wage starting to creep up. And so that is in essence one of our key goals,' added Hardin. A quality workforce goes hand in hand with access to quality education. 'So we came up with the scholarship program called the Gulf Coast Guarantee for any high school graduate in Bay, Gulf, and Franklin County. That's public school, private school, any school, we give them a $700 first-dollar scholarship to Gulf Coast,' said Gulf Coast State College President Glen McDonald. That's $700 for every semester for full-time students. New businesses coming to Marianna will help boost local economy With this program, Gulf Coast has given out $3.18 million over the last 4 years, around the same time they started to see their enrollment rates trending upwards. McDonald says their plan is working, but they could use is a little more help from the state. 'The state college system has been way behind in percentage of funding growth. So we would like to increase that because we are the workforce generators in the community, and we're very happy to see more students coming here and to get the help from the state,' said McDonald. Bay EDA officials will be going to the Miami boat show next week to network with marine manufacturing companies. Hardin says they already have 15 meeting scheduled. They'll also meet with the IAG Aero Group to discuss the construction kick-off at the airport campus. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
