Project IOWA, or Iowa Opportunities for Workforce Advancement, celebrated its first graduation class on Tuesday. Project IOWA works to train the unemployed with job skills in high demand career fields. The project was modeled off of a similar project in Texas. It works with employers, like Vermeer Corporation in Pella, to learn skilled workers are needed, then train the members of their programs with those skills so they are able to get a job. Project IOWA works with those employer partner to make sure their members don’t get trained for unneeded jobs. So far, 67% of the graduates of Project IOWA have been employed.