The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) awarded $13 million in federal funds to support 11 Trade Adjustment Assistance Centers (TAACs), including the Southeastern Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (SETAAC) at Georgia Tech, which received $1.2 million.
TAACs support a wide range of technical, planning, and business recovery projects to assist companies and the communities that depend on them adapt to international competition and diversify their economies.
“President Trump is engaged in a daily fight to ensure the latest success of American manufacturers and businesses turns into a permanent trend,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in a statement. “This program is just one element of a vast, government-wide effort to restore jobs, strengthen domestic manufacturing, and ensure free, fair, and reciprocal trade.”
The announced grants are for the third year of a funding cycle that runs from 2016 to 2021.
SETAAC, a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2), was established in 1974. In addition to serving Georgia, SETAAC works with companies in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
SETAAC provides up to $75,000 of matching funds for third-party consultants to help guide a client’s economic recovery. Eligible manufacturing firms contribute a matching share to create and implement their respective recovery plan.
In Fiscal Year 2018, SETAAC worked with 65 clients and helped those firms generate more than $178 million in sales and to save or create 284 jobs.