Jefferson receives federal grant for electric vehicle technician training

Published on Dec 5, 2025

Jefferson Community and Technical College is thrilled to announce it has received a $474,535 Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. government’s independent science agency.

The three-year grant will support the College’s electric vehicle technician training initiative by updating its Hybrid and Electric Vehicle (HEV/EV) curriculum to align with current industry needs and by assisting secondary and post-secondary automotive instructors across the state who seek to integrate H/EV training into their own programs.

"Jefferson is committed to preparing Kentucky’s workforce for the rapidly evolving automotive industry,” Jefferson President Ty Handy said. “This NSF ATE grant allows us to modernize our HEV/EV curriculum and ensure that both new and current technicians have access to the most up-to-date HEV/EV training available. We are proud to lead our region in offering dedicated hybrid and electric vehicle instruction, and this investment will help fuel the talent pipeline that supports our state’s growing automotive sector."

This ATE NSF grant will support the work of revising the automotive curriculum, modernizing and updating HEV/EV training courses, and building a HEV/EV training certificate. Nick O’Brien, Automotive Instructor, and principal investigator will lead the new initiative along with co-principal investigators Stephen Frame, Automotive Program Coordinator, and Will Riggs, Automotive Instructor.

Additionally, the grant will enable Jefferson faculty and staff to collaborate with secondary and post-secondary instructors statewide who lack HEV/EV resources, providing guidance on delivering high-quality safety training and classroom instruction.

O’Brien and Anna Kensicki, Grant Development Specialist, began preparing the grant proposal in 2023 with mentoring and technical support from Mentor Up, which provides mentoring and technical resources to help two-year college faculty write competitive grant proposals.

“Mentor Up did a tremendous job preparing our Jefferson faculty and staff to develop a strong application and budget,” O’Brien said. “Our mentor, Ken Walz, was especially instrumental with translating policies and guidelines into clear, workable steps and helped us understand how to put them into practice.  We’re grateful for his support and for Mentor Up’s role in helping us every step of the way.”

The ATE program focuses on the education of technicians who work in high-tech fields that drive the nation’s economy. Because two-year community and technical colleges are the leading sources of technician education in the United States, faculty from these higher education institutions have had leadership roles in most ATE projects since the program began in 1993.

For more information on Jefferson’s Electronic Vehicle Training, contact Stephen Frame, Automotive Program Coordinator, at stephen.frame@kctcs.edu