Full Circle Moment: Jerry Jones returns to RTP, heads new Center for Workforce Engagement at Durham Tech

After nearly 40 years, Jerry Jones returned to Research Triangle Park (RTP) as the Executive Director of the Center for Workforce Engagement at Durham Tech – helping prepare residents to meet demands in the workforce.

His career began in RTP in 1984 as a test technician with Nortel Networks. After gaining decades of experience in customized training throughout North Carolina and Virginia, he is back home and ready to make a measurable impact in the Triangle.

The Center for Workforce Engagement opened at RTP’s Frontier Campus earlier this year and will provide classroom space for customized training for new and growing businesses.

The Center also incorporates Durham Tech Career Services, Corporate Services, Human Resources Development, the Small Business Center, and Work-Based Education and Apprenticeship.

“Impacting people’s lives for good and being a part of training and connecting them to great job opportunities never gets old. Knowing that you play even a small part in changing people’s lives is a wonderful feeling,” Jones said.

‘World of opportunities’

Jerry Jones has always had a knack for explaining things.

As a kid, he loved figuring out how things work, how they function, and how they come together to make other things work. He was most interested in electronics and math, and was eager to share new discoveries with friends – explaining hard concepts in a way that made it easy to understand.

This natural ability to teach and interest in electronics and math led him to enroll in the Associate in Applied Engineering program at Fayetteville Technical Community College straight out of high school. He secured employment with Nortel Networks before graduating and started his professional career as a test technician in RTP.

“As a product of the community college system, I know the impact it can have on an individual’s life. It changed my life and opened up a world of opportunities for me,” Jones said. “I am grateful to God for the increase opportunities I have had, and it all started with Fayetteville Tech.”

Jones grew up in Linden, North Carolina, a rural town in Cumberland County.

He is the son of a brick mason and homemaker, and one of eight children. Their right of passage as kids was to work alongside their father during the hot summers and harsh winters.

“I remember helping him put antifreeze in the water so we could make up the mortar one winter. He managed to keep a roof over our head, food on the table, and always supported us. He’d say, ‘I expect you to do better than me. I’m working so you have more opportunity,’” Jones said. “My mother woke up early in the mornings to start a fire on our wood stove and make us biscuits from scratch before school. If you needed something, she’d do it. If you were hungry, she’d feed you. Our house was crowded, but we looked out for one another and were always close. My parents were my heroes. They taught us work ethic and the importance of being consistent.”

Those values carried Jones far in his career.

He worked at Nortel Networks for 15 years and worked his way up to Senior Technical Instructor. Nortel was where his interest in customized training began. AT&T, for example, would send their employees to Nortel and Jones trained them in how to use their products so they could become more efficient in their own jobs.

“This is where I realized training was my passion. It was understanding what I call complex components, mechanisms, and processes, and being able to put it in language that people could understand and relate to from looking at day-to-day objects, and just showing how it all worked,” he said.

In the mid-1990's, he moved to Northern Virginia to work for Cable & Wireless when the telecommunication bubble was at its peak. He began as an instructor, then senior instructor, and finally training manager.

“By then I was well seated in training and I wanted a bachelor’s degree in business to complement that,” he said. “It would prepare me for management and leadership and that was my focus. Others were reporting to me so I wanted to strengthen my ability to handle that.”

Jones also earned his master’s degree, both from National Louis University in Virginia.

‘It never gets old’

After 12 years at Cable & Wireless, the Jones family longed to come back home to North Carolina. Jones took a job with ASMO, an advanced manufacturing company in Greenville where he served as an Assistant Training Manager.

He worked at ASMO for 12 years and while in that position, built a strong relationship with Pitt Community College. When a Customized Training Program Coordinator position came available at Pitt, Jones jumped at the chance.

He worked at Pitt for another 12 years, working his way up to the Director of Workforce Development where he specialized in apprenticeships, human resource development (HRD), and career services.

In January 2022, Jones saw the opening at Durham Tech to lead the new Center for Workforce Engagement.

“It spoke to me. I knew it was customized training, apprenticeships, HRD. It was really a great match for me,” Jones said.

He started in March and was tasked with establishing strong relationships between Durham Tech and employers, county economic development leaders, and economic and workforce development organizations.

“The goals of the Center are to support, promote, and help facilitate the growth and spread of curriculum programs, short-term programs, and certification programs, so that we are preparing our students to engage and meet the demand that’s happening all around us in the workforce community,” Jones said.

Five Durham Tech service areas are housed under the Center for Workforce Engagement: Career Services, Corporate Services, Human Resources Development, Small Business Center, and Work-Based Education and Apprenticeship.

“The first few months, I’m not sure my feet ever hit the ground. There were so many people I wanted to meet with, and engage in roundtable discussion with local stakeholders,” he said. “In this first year, we really want to get the word out about the Center. Training and workforce development is what I have been doing most of my professional life, and it never gets old. I’m ready to make a positive and measurable impact at Durham Tech.”

Candace Rashada, Director of Career Services and HRD at Durham Tech, said Jones is a great addition to the College.

“Jerry’s community college experience, particularly with short-term workforce credential programs and customized training, provides the College with a great resource as we move forward with strategic goals, including an unprecedented focus on career and life sustaining employment opportunities for students,” she said. “His supportive leadership style demonstrates respect for his team in their service areas, while providing a collegial environment that centers and brands each area as part of the Center for Workforce Engagement.”

The Center will host its first training class at the new RTP location later this month.

Embracing challenges

When Jones got to college, he realized he had dyslexia, which made learning in areas other than math very challenging.

“As I grew older, I embraced the reality that I would have to work harder and study longer to gain the knowledge I needed to excel in life,” he said. “However, this gave me greater insight as an educator, to better see learning from the student’s perspective, exercising more patience when training, and encouraging students that they might have to work harder to learn and master a subject, but they could do it.”

When Jones is not at Durham Tech, he's spending time with family and standing behind the pulpit of Zion Wall Free Will Baptist Church in Linden. Jones has served as full-time pastor for the last 15 years, succeeding his father.

He lives in Clayton with his wife, Alicia. They have three children and three grandchildren.
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Contact Marcy Gardner, Content and Social Media Coordinator at gardnerm@durhamtech.edu