Case Study #1
Virginia Community College System
The Virginia Community College System (VCCS) is an affiliation of 23 community colleges in the Commonwealth, providing certification and degree pathways for more than 230,000 students each year. Recognizing the significant need nationwide for professional truck drivers—as well as the well-paying job opportunities available to CDL drivers—VCCS began a competitive bidding process to identify the most qualified CDL training vendors for its member schools. Citing Ancora’s ability to meet its stated requirements, program standards, and expectations, VCCS awarded a contract to Ancora Training (a division of Ancora Education) in early 2021.
Within a month of contract award, Ancora secured a partnership with Virginia Peninsula Community College (formerly Thomas Nelson Community College) and Virginia Highlands Community College, launching their first CDL courses in June 2021. Other colleges in the Commonwealth soon followed, and by mid-2022, Ancora had established training programs at ten other colleges in the state. Throughout this process, Ancora deftly handled a range of scenarios: taking over an existing program with a previous vendor, creating a non-credit program option for institutions that only offered a for-credit option limiting their ability to scale, or establishing a brand-new program for schools that never offered CDL before.
Within 18 months of launching its first training program in Virginia, Ancora had helped nearly 600 students achieve their CDL-A. Indeed.com estimates that there are currently more than 4,000 full-time job openings for entry-level CDL-A drivers, and the average starting salary in the Commonwealth is approximately $80,000—a remarkable opportunity for students who complete a four-week training course. Ancora’s strong presence in the state continues today.
Case Study #2
Greenville Technical College
Greenville Technical College is a multi-campus community college serving Greenville County, South Carolina. With an average enrollment exceeding 20,000 continuing education and academic students, Greenville Tech offers more than 100 different programs to prepare students—from recent high school graduates to adult learners—to enter the workforce equipped with the skills sought by today’s employers.
Greenville Tech had some success with offering a credit course for CDL training, with 40-50 students per year attaining their CDL. However, the administrative burden that typically accompanies a for-credit CDL course is significant, and, after hearing about Ancora from another community college, Greenville Tech reached out to Ancora for help. Ancora deployed a turnkey CDL solution at Greenville Tech without issue, even accommodating a rapid staff transition.
The interest in the new program, which kicked off in May 2021, was nearly immediate. Nine students enrolled in the first cohorts, and within seven months Ancora doubled the number of CDL class completers. As of April 2022, less than a year after the first class began, more than 200 students have completed Greenville Tech’s CDL Class A program with a 97% license rate.
From its inception, Ancora has managed Greenville Tech’s new CDL program with the professionalism and flexibility needed to lay the foundation for a successful college-based training course. The 160-hour program, which can be completed in as little as four weeks, has scaled to meet increasing demand; classes are now offered on the weekdays and weekends. Word of Ancora’s success spread among the other technical colleges in South Carolina, and five other colleges contracted with Ancora to bring the same successful program to their students.
Case Study #3
PepsiCo
In 2022, Ancora Training established a partnership with PepsiCo, one of the most recognizable convenient food and beverage corporations in the world, to provide skills-based training to PepsiCo employees. Ancora has implemented and is currently managing two of the global brand’s employee upskilling training programs: Class A Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) training and a Commercial and Industrial Maintenance Technician (CIMT) course. Eligible PepsiCo employees across the country may participate in these programs.
As an operator of the largest independently owned fleet of trucks in the U.S., PepsiCo employs thousands of drivers, many of whom require training. Ancora’s extensive experience in this sector—which includes managing CDL training programs for key leaders in the transportation and logistics marketplace—made it a natural fit for PepsiCo’s needs.
Ancora’s Class A Truck Driver training balances classroom learning and behind-the-wheel training to operate tractor-trailers on the road. The ELDT- compliant course covers the topics to prepare drivers for the CDL-A exam. Moreover, training takes place at PepsiCo locations, on PepsiCo equipment, which both minimizes the impact on an employee’s work schedule and trains employees using vehicles they operate every day in the field.
In addition to CDL-A training, PepsiCo also retained Ancora Training to provide a Commercial and Industrial Maintenance Technician (CIMT) course to employees. CIMT is a multidisciplinary branch of technology that focuses on diverse commercial and industrial equipment and technologies.
Ancora’s CIMT training exposes individuals to the safe operation of hand and power tools as well as system integration, all of which are critical skills for safe conduct on the production floor. The eight-week course can be presented in a hybrid modality, with the introductory sessions conducted virtually before trainees begin the hands-on section of the program. The CIMT curriculum familiarizes trainees in subjects fundamental to the discipline, such as industrial mechanics, hydraulics and pneumatics, electrical theory circuits, and programmable logic controllers. The training is useful to new hires as well as experienced technicians whose maintenance skills may need updating.
Ancora is privileged to include PepsiCo on its roster of premier clients.
