Bangor -
A milestone for the Maine Army National Guard today.
Paperwork was signed signaling the completion of the new Regional Training Institute.
Joy Hollowell takes us inside the new facility in Bangor.
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Anthony Cintron is headed to Afghanistan next month.
"Actually, I've already said good-bye to my wife," says Specialist Cintron.
The Army National Guard member is trained as a truck driver but can't ship overseas right now in that job. So, the Boston native made a choice.
"I decided to re-class to become a carpenter so I can go to Afghanistan," Cintron explains.
That's also why he decided to come to the new Regional Training Institute in Bangor.
"Units that are getting ready to deploy, they have to have a certain percentage of people who are qualified in the job they are deploying in," explains Master Sergeant Anthony Romano, Course Manager at the Regional Training Institute.
Sgt. James Roland arrived here from Shelbyville, Tennessee.
"I'd never been to Maine, I thought I'd come up here and see what it's all about," says Sgt. Roland.
Sgt. Roland and Specialist Cintron are part of the first group of students to come through the new school.
Maine's facility specializes in engineering. Guard members spend four weeks learning and living at the training site. The $33-million dollar school includes classrooms, A giant multi-purpose room, a 144-seat auditorium, medical training room, three dorms and a dining facility.
"Everything we have here is local," says MSgt. Romano. "The contractor who built the place is local. The wood is coming from a local company, the food that we're eating is provided by a local company."
It's set to be fully operational on October 1st and replaces the former training institute in Augusta, built back in 1958.
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Construction on the Regional Training Institute started on August 3rd, 2005. The first classes at the Bangor facility started on August 3rd of this year.
Classrooms are designed to hold as little as 20 or up to 100 students at a time. There is also a Distance Learning Center.
A formal ribbon cutting is set for sometime in October.
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