Dalton-Whitfield County Joint Development Authority

As a society, we celebrate college signing day for student athletes and the day high school students are accepted to their college of choice. While these are certainly things worth celebrating, today we celebrate signing day for the 18 graduates of the 2024 Project Purpose program! Project Purpose is a talent and workforce development initiative of the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce, the Dalton-Whitfield County Joint Development Authority, and Believe Greater Dalton designed for high school seniors who don’t have a plan after graduation. The program teaches these students essential skills for transitioning into adulthood, with the end goal of each student receiving and accepting a full-time job offer from one of our sponsoring companies. The 9-day program focuses on both personal and professional development training and leadership skills, conflict resolution, communication, quality, safety, and financial literacy. Students were graduates of The Dalton Academy, Dalton High School, Southeast Whitfield High School, or Northwest Whitfield High School in May and today, just three weeks later, accepted full time employment with one of four companies: Engineered Floors, LLC, Health One Alliance (Alliant Health Plans), Qcells North America, and Shaw Floors Two of the students accepted positions from companies where a parent currently works, and one is the first female equipment technician in the company’s history! One student shared how he not only got a job, but he realized how there really are cool things to do in Dalton, and he’s so happy to be starting his first job here! To top it off, we also have 7 new registered voters in our community because of this program! We could not be prouder of our cohort and are excited to see their future growth with our local companies! Congratulations!!

Essentia Protein Solutions - North America is hiring for their new facility at Carbondale Business Park in Whitfield County, GA. Quality Control & Systems Manager  Wastewater Manager Apply here: https://lnkd.in/eQ-s8-Rj Construction is underway and is expected to be complete in the coming months. For more information about Essentia, view our video here: https://lnkd.in/eAidADUs

“It seems evident that not everyone knows that there is a dedicated effort to recruit quality businesses to our community that provide great jobs and investments for the betterment of Greater Dalton,” said Carl Campbell, Executive Director of the Dalton-Whitfield JDA. “We have created a video to hopefully tell this story, as well as the story of a couple of recent industrial wins for the Dalton-Whitfield JDA.” Among those recent wins highlighted in the video are the businesses located inside of Carbondale Business Park: QCells, Essentia Protein Solutions, and GEDIA. In addition, the JDA’s partnership with Believe Greater Dalton (BGD) helped to introduce multi-family housing solutions into the Greater Dalton area because of BGD’s 2018 housing study. These housing solutions will offer recruits to new and existing industries an opportunity to reside in Greater Dalton, making an overall positive economic impact. “We intend to share this video with people from both in and outside of our community in a way to help shine a light on why Greater Dalton is a great place to live, work, and play and the best place for a company’s next investment,” said Campbell. To watch this video, please click the link below. https://lnkd.in/eEuDG-NC

One of our favorite things to do is to visit our friends in Atlanta. What a great day networking, meeting new project managers, and representing Whitfield and Murray counties!

Employers, please join us for Dalton State's Schmooza-Palooza tomorrow from 3:00-5:00!