With the impending closure of the Timken Company’s Altavista plant in August, officials from multiple levels of government, nonprofits and workforce development agencies are coming together to help transition employees to new opportunities.

Opened in 1991, the facility manufactures ball bearings for sport utility vehicles and four-wheel drive trucks and employed 125 people when Timken announced in March 2016 it was relocating the Altavista manufacturing operation to Lincolnton, North Carolina.

The first round of layoffs happened the week before Christmas, and a second round of layoffs will occur in March, followed by the last group of employees departing in August, according to Campbell County Economic Development Director Mike Davidson. Timken did not provide the numbers of employees being let go during each wave of layoffs.

In the days after the announcement, officials from the Virginia Employment Commission, Region 2000 and other groups met with Timken management to establish a timeline for the closure and create a plan to help workers.

“It was a very accurate and detailed discussion about how we can work with the company, to work with the pending dislocated workers so they can get the maximum benefit from the company and from us,” Altavista Economic Development Director Dennis Jarvis said in December. “The company has been very forthright with the employees and explaining to them what’s going on.”

Despite the gloomy news of the plant’s closure, Jarvis said the strong reputation of Timken’s workers coupled with expansions from other local manufacturing operations such as Abbott Laboratories will ease the job search for many laid-off employees.

“For every one job at Timken, there’s an equivalent of two openings for them to look at within driving distance right now,” Jarvis said. “The individuals are concerned, but the work ethic and training of the Timken employee is one of the reasons why they won’t stay idle very long. We were contacted early on from companies as far west as Botetourt about being able to come in and recruit.”

Coordinating the effort to help displaced workers is the region’s Rapid Response team, a federally funded program through the U.S. Department of Labor that provides states with resources to assist employees and businesses during layoffs. Mark Brickey, Rapid Response coordinator for the central Virginia region, is leading the team to connect workers to the resources they need to find a new job, get workforce training to change career paths or get health care coverage.

“We want to be able to assist those individuals so when their last day comes, and their feet hit the concrete, they know where to go so they can transition to something else as soon as possible,” Brickey said.

In November, Rapid Response held a meeting for employees at Timken where they could talk with representatives from VEC about filing for unemployment insurance, learn about their educational options through Central Virginia Community College and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act and participate in career building workshops. It is unclear how many workers attended the meeting.

According to Brickey, Timken has been very open to helping its employees find new opportunities after the factory closes. The company also is planning a job fair for employees in the future, allowing outside companies to come in and recruit Timken’s employees, he said.

“Timken has been such a joy,” he said. “In [my] line of work, you see what employers care and which ones don’t.”

A major player in helping workers is VEC, which is responsible not just for unemployment benefits but connecting workers to open jobs and assisting them in their search. Lynchburg’s VEC Employment Security Office Manager Kimberly McIvor said the goal is to make the transition time between jobs for Timken employees as short as possible.

“We’re really hoping that some of [the employees] may not necessarily need all of our services because we want to get them back to work as quickly as possible,” she said. “For those who that doesn’t happen, we want to get them connected as quickly as possible so if they are unemployed for any length of time, it is as short a duration as possible. That’s what our focus is always when we hear of closures or major layoffs, to assist them through that transition and get them back to work as quickly as possible.”

For workers who want to change careers and need more education, the Region 2000 Workforce Center is helping connect workers to funding through the dislocated worker program. Staff will provide work readiness assistance to develop résumé writing and interview techniques, help workers identify their interests and potential new career paths and fund on-the-job training or further education.

“What we’re trying to do is, for each person that has been laid off, is meet them where they are,” Region 2000 Workforce Center Workforce Development Program Coordinator Alvin Jones said. “Some of them might have a job coming out of it, so we can do the on-the-job training, but some of them might be thinking about switching careers, so we want to do everything we can possibly do to help them be successful with that whole transition.”

Another organization partnering with Rapid Response to help Timken’s dislocated workers is Enroll Virginia, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting people with signing up for health insurance coverage if it is not available to them through an employer.

Even though Timken is offering their employees a year of health insurance coverage after the closure, according to Enroll Virginia Education and Outreach Coordinator Amber Poron, the group still came to talk with employees about options for the future.

“We come in and share with [employees] what their options are because a lot of the people in those seminars have been under their employer’s insurance for quite a long time,” she said. “We go in and share information with them so they can come in and sit down with us. A lot of times, they might not need us right away.”

Enroll Virginia provides free services to anyone in the community who needs assistance signing up for health insurance, not just workers who have just been laid off recently.

“We take everybody on a case-by-case basis, and we look at all of the different vectors and see if they would be eligible for health care through the federal marketplace or if they are eligible for a tax credit that would reduce their monthly premium, which is based on their taxable household income,” she said. “We help them from start to finish and discuss what options and help them go through an application.”

As far as the physical factory building, both Altavista Economic Development and Campbell County Economic Development are working together to sell the building and try and find a new employer to fill the space. Officials said another company is considering purchasing the building, but no other information can be disclosed.

“The [building] is still relatively new,” Jarvis said of the building constructed in 1991. “We will make sure that facility doesn’t sit fallow within a year so we can pick that up and hopefully heal those wounds for those people.”

No employees of Timken could be reached for comment.