A North Country college moves forward with plans that school and state leaders believe will expand opportunities for graduates seeking careers in emerging industries. Matt Hunter reports.

QUEENSBURY,N.Y. -- A high school senior planning to study physical therapy, 17-year-old Remi Baker wonders whether she'll be able to live out her dream of starting a career near her hometown of Hadley Luzerne.

"The more that I travel, the more that I know I want to stay local," Baker said Thursday. “I come from a small town and it's difficult thing to find jobs that I give great opportunities where I am from."

Even before high school graduation, Baker and her friend, Kiernan Fitzpatrick, are full-time freshman at SUNY Adirondack. On campus Thursday, the two watched as Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul announced the school will become the future home of the Adirondack Workforce Readiness Center.

"No longer are we going to have a skills gap right here,” Hochul said. “We are going to link the people with the skills to the jobs and it's going to start right here."

Featuring applied learning and training labs for small business, healthcare and STEM students, the school will bring in local business leaders to provide students hands-on, face-to-face training.

"We want to create those applied learning experiences in the classroom so students can see first of all that this is what the job world is like but also that there are jobs in this region," said Kristine Duffy, the college’s president.

"Having hands on activity will give me more activity and a better advantage, opposed to other students who don't really have any hands on activity or real experience," Kiernan.

Groundbreaking for the nearly $10 million building is planned for next summer, with the entire cost being covered by the state. 

"This is transformational," Duffy.

With a goal of better preparing graduates for the workforce so they can find opportunities in the region, the program is specifically targeted for students like Baker.

"It will lessen peoples worries about finding jobs where they grow up,” Baker said. “It will enable people to stay where they want to."