Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley visited Indianola Tuesday, taking a tour of the Missouri Valley Training Facility along with members of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, the Indianola Chamber of Commerce, and the City of Indianola discussing federal infrastructure investment. Senator Grassley tells KNIA News he sees this training facility as a huge benefit to worker safety.

“Facilities like this, training people to make them safe as they work on our electricity lines are very important. And it tells me that the efforts of the federal government through OSHA to make sure we have safe practices. This is something, and the cooperation of the utilities and the unions, that are not going to undercut the goals of OSHA. In fact I think I can be even more strong than that, they are going to go above and beyond what OSHA requires.”

Executive Director of the Missouri Valley Line Robbie Foxen tells KNIA News he hopes Senator Grassley saw that investments on training for jobs such as the ones his facility provides are key for keeping the economy growing.

“I see universities and community colleges given huge grants and a lot of money to expand their universities and classrooms and curriculum, and Missouri Valley’s already looking at adding on more employees, more classrooms, and we are trying to keep up with demand to upgrade the infrastructure moving forward 10 years 20 years. So we’re challenged with how we expand, how do we hire more employees, how do we fund it, so invest in training, invest in apprenticeships, invest in unions, invest in the middle class.”

Indianola Mayor Pam Pepper also spoke at the event discussing the benefits of the investment of infrastructure and the partnership of public and private investment such as the building of the Missouri Valley Line facility in Indianola.