PORT ANGELES — Peninsula College will offer several new certificates and associate degrees, with the intention of training workers for jobs on the North Olympic Peninsula, President Tom Keegan said.

“We are proud to be able to serve our community with expanded opportunities, even in a time when higher education funding is being cut by the state Legislature,” he said.

Starting this spring, the college will offer a one-year, entry-level composite certificate and a composites technology program, which, when paired together, will lead to a two-year degree at the college.

The program is aimed at workers who want to start working in composites — materials made of two or more substances — immediately after completing the entry-level certificate.

“Our plan is to offer the degree so that we can assess it for applicability for articulating it for a university so that it would lead to a four-year material science degree,” Keegan said.

The program would be helpful for those who hope to get a job at Angeles Composite Technology — or ACTI — Westport Shipyard or LibTech and GNU snowboard manufacturers, Keegan said.

“It is applicable to anywhere that works with composites,” he said.

Representatives of Westport and ACTI along with those of the state Department of Commerce, Port Angeles School District, Sequim School District, Skagit Valley College and Edmonds College attended a January meeting to discuss recruitment efforts to the program, Keegan said.

Peninsula College also will expand offerings at the Port Townsend campus: welding, through the Northwest School of Boatbuilding, and a commercial driver’s licence training program.

Both will begin in the spring quarter this year.

Two new degrees and a new certificate all fall under the college’s effort to encourage sustainable building and energy.

An energy efficiency degree will begin in fall 2010 in a partnership with Centralia College, Keegan said.

Some of the classes will be on interactive TV through classes at Centralia College, Keegan said.

Such classes are already offered at Peninsula College, on the Port Angeles, Forks and Port Townsend campuses.

A green construction building trades program will enhance the current woodworking, homebuilding and construction trades program through the college and the North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center, Keegan said.

It will provide training on smaller, green projects and basic skills.

Students then may continue through the building program and earn applied science degrees.

A one-year home and building energy auditor program will train energy auditors.

No date for the program to begin has been set.

The program through the Olympic Workforce Development Council is funded with federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money.

The grant was received through the Department of Labor Sound Energy Efficiency Development.

Peninsula College worked with the Construction Center of Excellence at Renton Technical College, the North Peninsula Builders Association, the North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center, the Clallam County Historical Society, the Office of the Superintendent of Public instruction and the Workforce Development Council while developing the program.

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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.