University of Illinois providing Cannabis workforce training
SPRINGFIELD - Cannabis sales in the state of Illinois increased by 13% in FY2022.
The University of Illinois Springfield partnered with Green Flower, a training platform for cannabis professionals. They offer four different certificate programs: healthcare & medicine, cannabis compliance & risk management, law & policy, business, and agriculture & horticulture.
The programs are fully online and are available to everyone, not just UIS students. Robert Kerr, the Director of Continuing and Professional Education at UIS, said this program has helped increase profits from the cannabis industry throughout the state.
"We consider it not just a workforce initiative, but an economic development initiative, because it's helping this region by creating the workforce necessary for this important sector, which should lead to further growth," said Kerr. "So what I feel like we're doing is ecosystem building, we want to get as many people trained and become experts to fuel cannabis expansion in this region."
Max Simon, the CEO of Green Flower, said the training helps improve participants job prospects, as there a lot of potential positions in the ever-growing industry.
"The cannabis industry is the fastest growing job market in the country right now and that means that there's lots of paying jobs for people that want to participate in this fast growing industry," said Simon. "I think that it's really important to bring education, not just to make people aware of the opportunities, but to give them an exciting new career path."
