Great Basin College Awarded $630,962 WINN Grant Expanding CDL Training to Pahrump

Great Basin College has been awarded $630,962 in Workforce Innovations for a New Nevada funding from the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development to expand its Commercial Driver’s License training program, GBC said, a move that will add equipment, an instructor and new seats with enrollment slated to begin fall 2026. The college said the funding “will allow GBC to increase Class A CDL training at its Elko Campus, expand training to Ely, Pahrump and Winnemucca and launch a new Class B CDL program in Elko.”

The GOED grant application outlines the operational plan in three parts: “(1) expand its current Class A Commercial Driver's License (CDL-A) program at the GBC-Elko main campus; (2) expand CDL-A training to GBC’s satellite areas, including Ely, Pahrump and Winnemucca; and, (3) launch CDL-B training at the GBC-Elko main campus.” Those expansions are paired with purchases of updated training equipment and the hiring of an additional CDL instructor to increase capacity across GBC’s rural service area.

The application’s budget pages show the WINN award broken into Priority Program Costs of $446,462 and Allowable Program Costs of $184,500, totaling $630,962 in WINN funds. The same application separately lists an Instructor #1 salary column of $134,857.80, producing a combined “Total Project Funding” figure of $765,819.80 when the WINN funds are added to that instructor salary column. The application text explicitly calculates the instructor cost as “GBC currently pays CDL-A Instructor #1 salary and fringe: $77,000 + 25.1% fringe = $96,327 x 1.4 (years) = $134,857.80 (March 2026 through June 2027).”

State workforce guidance frames the grant’s intent: “The grant covers the cost of instruction, equipment and student registration fees,” an NSHE workforce committee excerpt states. GBC and GOED say the expansion targets a documented shortage of licensed commercial drivers in Nevada and aims to shore up workforce pipelines that serve transportation, mining support and construction employers. GBC quoted the program goal directly: “The goal of the expansion is to strengthen Nevada's transportation and logistics industries by creating a workforce of trained individuals to take up commercial driver jobs in the future.”

Local partners listed by GBC as having expressed support include Elko County, the City of Elko, Pilot Thomas Logistics, Redi Services, Capurro Trucking and Wells Propane. GBC notes it reestablished the CDL-A program in 2015 and has since maintained strong student success and job placement rates, with graduates moving into transportation, logistics, mining support and construction roles.

Administratively, the project applicant is the Board of Regents, NSHE, on behalf of Great Basin College, and the GOED project period is listed as March 2026 through June 2027. Expanded training is scheduled to begin fall 2026, and GBC’s Continuing Education office can be reached at 775-327-5300 for program details and enrollment information. If implemented as planned, the WINN-funded expansion will extend GBC’s training footprint into Pahrump and three other rural communities while linking classroom capacity to employer demand across northeastern and southern Nevada.