Bainbridge Manufacturing CEO Abraham Levy signed an official training agreement Thursday with Georgia Quick Start, a training program that brings the tools, materials and instructors a company needs to train and retain its workforce.

The agreement was signed by Levy, Georgia Quick Start Executive Director Steve Daniel and Southern Regional Technical College President Craig Wentworth.

The Decatur County Board of Commissioners, Industrial Development Authority members and more than a dozen Bainbridge Manufacturing employees were in attendance.

“We started out by hiring the best employees available,” Levy said. “The equipment is very sophisticated, very advanced, so we partnered with Georgia Quick Start. They saw what skills we needed in our employees and devised a training program for our them. They learned welding, automation, programing robots, all the skills we need to be successful at the plant.”

Levy noted he was fortunate to hire extremely smart people who have been able to make the vision for the plant a reality.

Southern Regional Technical College is scheduled to fully acquire the Bainbridge State College campus by the end of this year. Levy is already working with SRTC to coordinate classes and internships the school could have to prepare its students for potential jobs at Bainbridge Manufacturing.

“We are really excited for this opportunity for our college to be able to prove ourselves.,” Wentworth said. “They have done a great job of getting your company off on the right foot. Down the road, we are looking forward to providing that long-term training.”

Bainbridge Manufacturing will create air conditioning components for vehicles, a product whose manufacturing is heavily centralized in China. Levy’s goal is to outpace China using cutting edge technology that can only be found in his plant.

Working closely with engineers and designers, Levy has assembled machines that in some cases can do twice the amount of work multiple laborers could do.

“We are doing everything ourselves here, so we have cut out multiple layers of the middle man out of the picture,” Levy said. “They have cheap labor. We have a robot that can do twice the amount of work that 10 people do in China. We’ll outpace them, and we’ll maintain the same quality over and over and over.”

Levy wants the stamp that reads “Made in the USA” on his products to have a special meaning to car manufacturers.

“Yes, we can compete with China,” Levy said. “We can compete with cheap labor. The only way to do it is to have very advanced automated equipment and robots in your manufacturing process.”

Despite the advanced robotics, Levy still points back to his employees as the real engine of Bainbridge Manufacturing’s start.

“This truly is a unique story,” said Daniel. “The fact that Abraham is taking young people and giving them the opportunity and the training to advance into this new world of technology, and giving them careers that they probably in some cases thought they’d never have.”