This story originally appeared in the Boston Business Journal.
Real estate firm Beacon Capital Partners, the trade organization MassBio and the City of Boston are teaming up on a new, 4,000-square-foot workforce training center at the site of the former Boston Globe headquarters.
The center, called the MassBio Training Center at Southline, is expected to open in September next year. When it does, it will provide training options for a variety of career paths in the growing biopharmaceutical industry: technicians, lab assistants, entry-level lab operations managers and biomanufacturing roles, among others.
MassBio president and chief operations officer and incoming CEO Kendalle Burlin O’Connell said she and her partners are also working on tracks to boost people’s skills, particularly related to regulatory affairs roles.
Each of these programs will be free. The center will also provide a stipend to offset any lost income from time that would otherwise be spent working and pay for wraparound services. Students will be eligible for certificates upon completion.
“It was very important to us, as we built this, that we contemplated common barriers of entry for individuals,” Burlin O’Connell said. “Of course, offering the certificate programs for free, providing a living-wage stipend and the contemplation of wraparound services was an absolute necessity for the success of this training center.”