Brewton IT company will provide training free of charge for those wanting to work
If you have the aptitude, attitude and work ethic, Provalus in Brewton has a job for you.
Scott Sullivan, senior vice president of Provalus, and Brewton Mayor Yank Lovelace appeared before the Escambia County Commission for a meet and greet and an update on the new Information Technology center.
“Scott and I were talking last week at Rotary and he had not met many of the commissioners,” Lovelace said Monday. “Provalus is growing at a very rapid rate.”
Lovelace also told the commission that Provalus has employees from each of their districts.
Sullivan said Provalus began communications about 18 months ago and is temporarily housed in downtown Brewton. He said they graduated their first training class a year ago and created six jobs. Today there are 50 full time jobs, and there are more jobs to be filled.
He said bringing Provalus to Brewton involved a partnership between the company, the state and the city of Brewton.
“I'd like to see a partnership with the county,” he said.
He said some of the issues being faced are affordable housing and attracting the talent needed to fill the jobs.
He described Provalus as an IT service organization that provides software developers and technical support. He said most of the current staff is making $24,000 per year and up.
Lovelace said workforce is a problem for existing industry as well and incentives are needed to get people to come here and work.
Sullivan said the skills needed include science, technology and math backgrounds, but most importantly they need the right attitude and “play nicely in sandboxes with others.”
Provalus provides all the training needed on site in Brewton. He said right now it's about 50-50 in terms of employees who graduated from college or high school. He said 60 percent of the work involves software design.
He also invited the public to come to Provalus on June 28 for an open house.
People interested in a job with Provalus can go to their website at http://www.provalus.com. Hover over the 'join us' icon for a drop-down box and click on 'apply'. Fill out the information and hit enter.
If anyone has any questions they can contact Garrett Robinson at 251-286-1070.
