ENERGY skills ambassador Celia Anderson has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the University Campus Suffolk (UCS Lowestoft).
Ms Anderson has been involved in pioneering the Skills for Energy Partnership in the east of England.
By the end of the year, she hopes to name a site for a new flagship EPISCentre, to be a hub to plug the gap in skills needs in the region.
Sixteen students have become the second-ever intake of Lowestoft College’s Energy Skills Foundation Programme – the programme was developed through the Skills for Energy Partnership and is now to be rolled out at other colleges and potentially across the UK.
Meanwhile, Ms Anderson’s encouragement of Forces4Energy has prompted many ex-service personnel to hone their skills to the needs of the civilian engineering sector.
“We’ve come a long way in the three years since I arrived,” said Ms Anderson, executive director at EEEGR (the East of England Energy Group) and leader of the Skills for Energy Programme.
“The east of England is on the threshold of one of the biggest economic booms in its history but unless we can deliver enough people with the skills and expertise to do the work the region could miss out on billions of pounds of potential investment and wealth.”