Cyber industry taking notice of Bossier City
Bossier City’s cyber technology industry is on the cusp of a boom, and now a designation given to the Bossier Parish community college labels the school as a ‘Center of Workforce Excellence in Cyber Technology’ in North Louisiana.
“We’ve got CSRA, we’ve got Century Link down the street we’ve got 3,000 cyber jobs between Shreveport and Monroe,” said Craig Spohn, the executive director of the Cyber Innovation Center.
The event was held in BPCC’s Emmett E. Cope Student Services Center at 6220 E. Texas St., Bossier City, LA at 2:00 p.m. Thursday. These centers reportedly provide customized educational and training programs to meet areas of need as identified by businesses and industries.
“It actually just recognizes that the work that we do with industry, the community, the focus that we have on cyber technology and really building out career pathways and becoming an economic driver in that particular sector,” said Sandra Partain, BPCC’s Dean of Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
Partain says these career pathways lead to jobs in computer programming, network security engineers, forensics jobs and more.
“Good paying jobs, consistent jobs, they don’t just provide opportunity to earn an income, they don’t just put food on the table… they build communities,” said BPCC Chancellor Dr. Rick Batemon Jr.
According to Spohn, the new jobs would not have been possible if the state stuck to strictly oil and gas opportunities.
“Just look at the difference, we didn’t have an IT sector in our community to speak of, and because we didn’t have that information technology sector to diversify our economy we suffered tremendously,” Spohn said.
He says the new jobs will also help graduates who were forced to leave after graduation stay here. Causing them to contribute to the community.
“This is going to reverse that outcome and it has not only reversed it – it has generated an influx of people from outside and people who were forced to leave previously being able to come back.”
He adds that it’s never too late to get into the Cyber Technology field.