DALTON, Ga. — Educational and political leaders gathered with Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday to break ground for an expansion of Georgia Northwestern Technical College’s Whitfield Murray Campus with the promise of filling the employment gap for businesses in Whitfield and Murray counties.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Joe Yarbrough, chair of the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia. ”Well, it’s here.”

The expansion at the Whitfield Murray Campus off Maddox Chapel Road that holds both a campus of GNTC and the Northwest Georgia College & Career Academy is a nearly $28 million project and will give the college 80,000 square feet of dedicated space. The construction will be on 21 acres of land donated by Whitfield County Schools.

Construction is slated to begin in August and is scheduled for completion in November of 2018. The expansion will have lab space, classrooms and administrative offices. Among the programs which will be offered are chemical technology, machine tool technology, computer information systems, criminal justice, diesel mechanic, engineering technology and welding.

Currently, the college has 1,000 students on the Whitfield Murray Campus. GNTC President Pete McDonald said the new facility will be able to accommodate as many as 4,000 students.

Along with local business leaders and the backing of the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners and the county school system, Commissioner Gretchen Corbin of the Technical College System of Georgia pointed to the leadership of Yarbrough, who has lived in Dalton since 1972 and was at one time president of the Carpet and Rug Institute.

“You have to have a champion, and we have had a champion in Joe Yarbrough.” Corbin said.

Deal said the project to bring a standalone facility to Whitfield County has been a combined effort of local and state leaders.

“In politics — for whatever reason — it is hard to put partnerships together,” Deal said in his keynote remarks. “This has been a partnership. … Thank you all for having the courage to make this a reality.”

Noting that Georgia was recently selected as the No. 1 state in the nation for business for the fourth straight year by Site Selection magazine, Deal said there is still a gap between jobs available and the skill sets needed to fill those jobs. He said the Whitfield County campus — which will be largest campus for GNTC — will help bridge that gap, and state government is doing all it can to provide those educational opportunities.

“Education — even the most fundamental level — appears to be out of reach for some,” Deal said. “Education should lead to employment. We have accelerated the number of programs whose participants will have a job waiting for them.”

Deal said 88.4 percent of all technical college graduates have job placements waiting for them when they complete their degree or certificate training. For some programs, he said that number is above 99 percent.

“It is working,” Deal said.

McDonald said there is a great demand for skilled workers in northwest Georgia and a shortage of people who are qualified to fill those jobs. The expanded campus will help to sustain the growth of local businesses and new developments, he said.

“As more and more of our industries become automated, there is a huge demand for people who can maintain and repair those automated machines and produce the parts for them,” McDonald said. “The demand for skilled workers in really good-paying jobs is certainly there. There is a huge demand for workers with skills such as welding or diesel mechanic or chemical technology, which is essential to so many businesses in our area.”