Our goal is to develop a pipeline of trained, credentialed, and diverse professionals for a safe and resilient meat processing industry. Specifically, our focus is to provide highly skilled personal (50 to 110 students per year) to work at all levels within small and very small meat processing plants, serving consumers and farmers at the local level. Our plan is to develop two separate but complimentary training programs, a 16-week program in northern Arizona at Yavapai College (YC) and a series of short courses in southern Arizona as part the University of Arizona (UA) Continuing & Professional Education program. Both training programs will lead to credentials for graduates, including certificates of completion and digital badges. The YC program will target recent high school graduates and will prepare students for production positions in meat processing, whereas the UA program will target industry personnel and nontraditional students and will prepare students for management positions in meat processing. The Arizona legislature has recently committed monies to build a meat processing plant in the vicinity of YC, as well as renovate the meat processing plant at UA. These two facilities give us a unique opportunity to deliver excellent hands-on training in meat processing. UA and YC will collaborate to ensure that both training programs maintain high standards of technical expertise and are complimentary to each other.