GRANTEE:                   Computer Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) Educational Foundation (#1)

ADDRESS:                  1815 South Meyers Road, Suite 300

                             Oakbrook Terrace, IL  60181

AMOUNT:                    $2,999,997

DURATION:                January 5, 2004 - January 5, 2007 (36 months)

POPULATION SERVED:  The project will serve a total of 1603 incumbent Information Technology (IT) workers from Allstate (907 workers), CitiGroup (470 workers), Merrill Lynch (200 workers), and two small business partners (26 between both): VanCura and ValCom.  Workers will be located at nine locations in Illinois, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, Florida, Missouri, and Ohio.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION:  Two primary service delivery strategies are envisioned.  The first will utilize corporate trainers to conduct training “in-house.”  The second will provide training through the use of experienced, external training institutions.  The training design will vary from instructor-led training to web-based and on-line learning. 

Occupations targeted for training include computer engineers, analog design engineers, computer programmers, computer and information systems managers, database administrators, systems architects, web architects, marketing engineers, network administrators, programmer analysts, security administrators, software application engineers, and systems analysts.

Employer partners have committed to providing $3,816,508 in matching funds through release-time salaries paid to employees while they receive training.  The grantee has committed to providing matching in-kind services to the partners worth $222,677.  Total match commitment is $4,039,185.

Of those workers completing the training program, ninety percent will receive a three to seven percent wage increase.  Ninety percent will be employed in H-1B level IT occupations.  Twenty percent will receive at least one industry-recognized certification and eighty percent will receive an internal IT certification issued and validated by the corporate partners.  Four workers will earn an IT Master’s Degree.

KEY PARTICIPANTS:  CompTIA, Allstate, CitiGroup, Merrill-Lynch, VanCura & Associates, ValCom, Brayden Technologies, Unitech Technologies, IBM.

MEDIA CONTACT:    John Engram

                            (630) 678-8352