BREMERTON — The partnership between Olympic College and Washington State University is growing this year with the addition of an electrical engineering bachelor’s degree program starting Aug. 22 at the Bremerton OC campus.

“It’s great for us,” said OC’s Shawn Devine, director of communications, “because it’s another pathway for OC students to earn (an associate degree with an engineering focus) and then transfer directly into an engineering program.”

This Bremerton-based program will be sharing facilities with the existing mechanical engineering program, also a partnership between WSU and OC, for the 2016-17 school year. In the 2017-18 school year, Devine said the program should be able to move into its permanent location across from the main Bremerton campus, the old CENCOM building on Warren Avenue.

According to WSU program manager Murari Kejariwal, the electrical engineering program “follows the same structure as the one in Pullman.” Currently, 13 students are enrolled for the coming school year, but Kejariwal said he expects it to grow to 25 next year, and more the following year. He said there are three full-time faculty members and one adjunct faculty member for the coming school year.

Kejariwal said State Rep. Drew Hansen,23rd Legislative District Democrat, was instrumental in securing funding for this program from the state.

“I think Drew Hansen noticed that there’s a big need for electrical engineers in this area,” Kejariwal said, “because we’ve got the Naval Shipyard and other companies looking for engineers.”

He added that having this program in Kitsap County is especially beneficial for place-bound students who can’t go to WSU’s main campus in Pullman, or across the Puget Sound to Seattle. Being place-bound means a student wouldn’t be able to move to a new area for school for reasons including family obligations, employment, money and more.

“I think that was the main force behind it,” Kejariwal said.

Devine said not just Bremerton OC students are transferring into the four-year program.

“Quite a few students from Tacoma and Pierce County are coming into the program,” he said. “It has a regional impact outside of Kitsap County.”

Devine said the program is designed to be the junior and sophomore years of a four-year degree program. The freshman and senior years and the prerequisites for the upper-level courses could be completed at local community colleges such as Olympic College or Tacoma Community College, after which students could transfer into the WSU program based in Bremerton.

“It’s really important and a great asset for community colleges,” Devine said, “because historically, we serve underrepresented populations, people from low-income backgrounds, non-traditional returning students. Many of them are place-bound … This is an opportunity for them to get that degree and credential locally, and get them into the workforce and make them a living wage.”

OC and WSU also have a partnership with a mechanical engineering program based in Bremerton. OC also partners with Western Washington University, mostly out of the Poulsbo campus, though there are some WWU four-year programs based out of the Bremerton campus as well. Devine said OC has partnered with out-of-state universities such as Brandman University (Irvine, Calif.) and Old Dominion University (Norfolk, Va.), but those are mostly online courses.

“The excitement of another bachelor’s degree pathway through our partnership with WSU here locally in Kitsap County, especially with the shipyard (is exciting),” Devine said. “What we’ve heard from our partners at the shipyard is they have an aging workforce … and so as they move on, this is creating an opportunity for new, highly skilled workers and engineers to get in there and continue the good work that’s been going on at that shipyard for decades.”

To learn more about the electrical engineering program, its associated scholarships and admission requirements, visit www.olympic.edu/wsu-electrical-engineering.