Training facility promises to prepare Hardin County workers for battery plant jobs

GLENDALE, Ky. (WAVE) - A new training center is under construction in once open fields near Glendale in Hardin County.

It will be where thousands of workers, both current and future generations, will learn the skills they need to work at the BlueOval SK Battery Plant.

Due to open in 2025, the plant is expected to bring 5,000 jobs to Hardin County.

“We’ve always dreamed of a Kentucky that leads the country, that’s never viewed as a flyover state ever again, where no one can ever look down their nose at us ever again,” Gov. Andy Beshear said at the training facility groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday. “And I think building the world’s biggest battery plant means we made it. But I know we’ve got a lot more work to do to make sure every single part of this commonwealth has these types of opportunities.”

Beshear also set the bar high with promises to Ford Motor Company, which will install the batteries in its next generation of electric vehicles.

‘We will not let you down,” Beshear said. “We are going to build the best ever, best battery plant this country has ever seen. We’re going to produce the highest quality battery right here in Hardin County.”

The training facility will be part of Elizabethtown Community and Technical College (ECTC), where future battery plant workers find training in areas from safety to robotics and other high-tech fields.

“If you’re talking about really innovative, high-tech, high-end production jobs,” ECTC President Juston Pate said. “The learning will never stop. So the training is going to be a continuum.”

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