GEORGETOWN, Del.- Delaware Technical Community College's Owens Campus in Georgetown will double the amount of automotive graduates thanks to a $5.4 million expansion.

On Thursday, officials broke ground on the "Automotive Center of Excellence" at the Georgetown campus. The new building will have seven automotive bays and two diesel training bays, allowing DelTech to double its automotive graduates from 20 to 40 and train up to 15 diesel mechanics per year.

"Diesel is a huge component especially not just for passenger vehicles but fleet vehicles, big commercial trucks and that's a very important principle to cover," says student Joe Hartman. "You get techs that are needed all the time not just in gas, electric and hybrid but also in a diesel program. So to have a program tailored to that is going to be awesome."

Nearly $2 million of the $5.4 million expansion is funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant. Another $1.8 million comes from the state’s Higher Education Fund, and $120,000 comes from Sussex County Council.

"Across the country 157 million people go to work. There are 3-4 million jobs where nobody will show up because they don't have the training, the experience, the desire to do the particular job," says Senator Tom Carper. "T we take a big step towards meeting that need."

The expansion is a public-private partnership as well, with many local auto dealerships taking part in the program.

"What we are all about at Delaware Tech is economic development; developing the workforce to meet the local industry's needs," explains Dr. Bobbi Barends, DelTech's vice president and campus director. "Years we have heard from local auto dealerships and the diesel industry 'we need more technicians, we need trained technicians,' and so this project is so critically important because all those team members came together to help fund this project."

The building is expected to open in November 2020. For more information, click here.