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Speaking from inside a cavernous Arcata Bottoms warehouse this afternoon, state Senator Mike McGuire unveiled a $10 million investment to transform the expansive building into a state-of-the-art health care educational hub for Cal Poly Humboldt and College of the Redwoods.

“The North Coast has some of the most acute shortages of health care professionals and nurses in California,” McGuire said. “We’ve expanded the pipeline for nurses here on the North Coast by launching the licensed vocational nurse-to-registered-nurse program in Del Norte County at the College of Redwoods Crescent City campus. … Even with all of this progress expanding the health care workforce, we needed a home and that is why we are in a warehouse this morning.”

For years, Cal Poly Humboldt has used the 30,000-square-foot warehouse, located on Samoa Boulevard, as a storage facility. In the next two to three years it will house “the most modern learning lab between the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oregon border.”

“It will be the epicenter for training North Coast health care leaders and the workforce of tomorrow,” McGuire said. “This health care education hub will house amazing health care labs, classrooms, as well as conference rooms all specially designed to train not just nurses but respiratory therapists, radiology techs, psychiatric techs and more.”

McGuire credited College of the Redwoods President Keith Flamer and Cal Poly Humboldt President Tom Jackson Jr. for leading the charge on the new health care hub. 

“We clearly understand that we can do much more to help our students if we work together and not separately,” Flamer said. “This health care education hub is just another example of the wonderful work that [President] Jackson and Cal Poly Humboldt have been able to do in the last four years. … There’s a lot more room to expand for our community partners and other health care areas that we don’t yet have or we haven’t even dreamed of.”

Jackson shared Flamer’s sentiment and offered “a very, very, very big thank you” to McGuire for helping to make the health care hub a reality.

“The things that you are able to do for this region and its campuses rarely go unnoticed,” he said. “CR and Cal Poly Humboldt have … a connectedness that is centered on serving this region and the students that learn here. … We intend to create a thriving health care program. This facility and the joint academic programs that are a part of it helped us to do just that.”

There were several aspiring and practicing registered nurses present during today’s announcement. McGuire highlighted one woman in particular, Regina Taylor, who was among the first to graduate from Cal Poly Humboldt with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.

“I can’t say enough about the faculty at both [CR and Cal Poly Humboldt],” Taylor said. “The faculty is there to assist us through thick and thin, through laughter and crying. … They prepared me to enter the medical field with confidence and the foundation to be the best nurse that I am. I am fortunate to say I have recently accepted a position at Redwood Coast PACE as an RN.”

Keep scrolling for more pictures of today’s announcement!