A dedication ceremony Friday is another sign of the growing agriculture industry in Nebraska.

The Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture introduced its new Education Center.

The facility includes classrooms, a computer lab, biochemistry lab and agronomy lab.

“If you think about what lies ahead, for us to be able to contribute to the world and the world's peace and the world's prosperity, it centers right on top of agriculture,” says Ronnie D. Green, Vice. Pres., Ag. & Nat Resources, Univ. of Neb. “And by virtue of that, it centers right over the top of Nebraska.”

“We really focus on four areas here: vet tech, horticulture, animal production and AG business,” says Scott Mickelsen, Assoc. Dean, Neb. College Technical Agriculture “And I think one of the things we do in our programs is that they can take some business skills and link them to the technical skills they're learning in some of the areas to help them be better or more successful when they enter the workforce.”

The project is one of four in the last two years totaling $15 million.

The others include an addition to the Veterinary Teaching College, a residence hall and the BioMass Project, designed to heat the campus with red cedar wood chips.

The college says over 200 donors made the projects possible.

“To be able to come here, to learn those technical skills, to learn that information they are going to need to have, to go into that next 40 years, and to be able to apply that information is a serious investment that we are very happy to have the chance to make,” says Green.