El Centro College Fashion Marketing partners with Gap and Obama’s Skills for America’s Future

DALLAS - March 18, 2015 - PRLog -- For the fourth consecutive year, El Centro College has received a grant from Gap Inc. for Community Colleges as part of the White House initiative Skills for America’s Future, providing specialized training and scholarships for select ECC students enrolled in the school’s Fashion Marketing program.

  As part of the award, the Gap Foundation will host a workshop for Fashion Marketing students on Saturday, March 28. El Centro students will receive the same training as all new career-path Gap employees, including topics on Job Search to Job Offer, Communicating Effectively, and Time Management.

  “We’re proud to participate in this important initiative and help college students build the foundation they need to grow and compete in the fast-changing, global retail industry,” said Glenn Murphy, Chairman and CEO of Gap Inc., when the program was first announced four years ago. “Our in-house training materials will be made available to all community college students and applicable to many industries. This benefits students, employees and customers, and also allows us to support the federal government’s efforts to improve the economy.”

 After the workshop, all students hoping to be considered for positions with any of the Gap brand stores participate in mock interviews. The students receive feedback from Banana Republic general managers on their interview skills and how prepared they are to transition to the workplace. Selected students then receive job shadowing experience at the Banana Republic store conducted personally by the general manager. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-kczhCYg5k



  “This ongoing partnership between the Gap and El Centro College provides our students with the opportunity to participate in ‘real-world’ training experienced by employees that creates some exciting career pathways with one of America’s must important retail corporations,” said Marilyn Sullivan, Fashion Marketing faculty member and the program’s coordinator. “This is a tremendous opportunity for our students to position themselves for cooperative education training experiences and eventual post graduate employment.”

About Skills for America’s Future
Launched by President Barack Obama in 2010, Skills for America’s Future seeks to provide Americans with the opportunities to develop skills to extend economic opportunity for workers and grow the economy by making America’s businesses more productive, innovative, and competitive by

♦ Prroviding a platform to help illustrate the problem of the skills gap
♦ Demonstrating how businesses can successfully partner with community colleges to meet their workforce needs
♦ Offering a place where employers, community colleges, and their other workforce partners can exchange ideas
♦ Changing the conversation so that the business and education communities focus on replicable and scalable solutions.

About Gap, Inc.
Gap, Inc. (www.gapinc.com) is one of the world's most iconic apparel and accessories brands and the authority on American casual style. Founded in San Francisco in 1969, Gap’s collections are designed to build the foundation of modern wardrobes – all things denim, classic white shirts, khakis and must-have trends. Beginning with the first international store in London in 1987, to the brand’s planned 2015 debut in India, Gap continues to connect with customers online and across the brand’s more than 1,700 company-operated and franchise retail locations around the world. Gap includes Women's and Men's apparel and accessories, GapKids, babyGap, GapMaternity, GapBody and GapFit collections. The brand also serves value-conscious customers with exclusively-designed collections for Gap Outlet and Gap Factory Stores. Gap is the namesake brand for leading global specialty retailer, Gap Inc.  which includes Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime, Athleta and Intermix.

About El Centro College
Located in the heart of downtown Dallas, Texas, El Centro College (www.elcentrocollege.edu) is a vibrant, urban community college that is fully committed to a seamless educational process and life-long learning. The Fashion Marketing program at El Centro College is a nationally renowned vocational education curriculum that specializes in the business side of fashion – combining modern business principles with ambition, creativity, and enthusiasm. In 2014 the fashion marketing program was recognized by the Texas Skill Standards Board (www.tssb.org/ctc/elcentrocollege) for successfully integrating work competencies established by the National Retail Federation into the degree curriculum that are required for success in both customer service and professional sales.