Manufacturer ZF Wind Power officially entered an agreement Tuesday with the state of Georgia to help the company hire and train 250 employees for its new Gainesville plant.

The state's Quick Start program, an incentive initiative that provides customized job training to new or expanding companies, will help train new employees in building wind turbine gear shift boxes.

Last year, ZF did $15 billion in sales, and this will be the company's first venture into the clean energy market.

The Quick Start program helped nearly 175 companies expand in 2010 through customized workforce development planning offered in conjunction with the state's technical college system, locally Lanier Technical College. The services, funded by state tax dollars, are offered at no cost to the companies.

ZF Industries, an automobile manufacturing company, has been based in Gainesville since 1987. ZF Wind Power officials said Quick Start was pivotal in the company's decision to build the headquarters for the new ZF subsidiary in Georgia.

"(Quick Start) will design the training process very specifically to your needs," said ZF Wind Power President Elizabeth Umberson. "So it's not a fixed program and they say, ‘Here it is, one size fits all.' No matter what your equipment or what your industry, they come with open notebooks and you design the process with them."

Russell Vandiver, president of Lanier Tech, said the new training materials are about 70 percent complete and some training classes have already been conducted. Those classes will be held in conjunction with hiring fairs until the 250 positions are filled.

According to company officials, the Department of Labor has estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 applications will be needed to fill those positions. After new employees go through the jobs skills program, Quick Start provides safety training.

Once all employees are trained, Quick Start will hand the training materials over the ZF for future use.

"(Quick Start) is one of the things in state government that actually pays for itself with the jobs created bringing taxes and offsetting the cost of the program," Vandiver said.

This isn't the first time ZF has partnered with Quick Start.

Before the German-based company built its transmissions manufacturing plant in Gainesville in 1987, Quick Start officials traveled to Germany to help secure the deal.

At that time, transmissions weren't being made in North Georgia, and Lanier Technical College helped train workers in the necessary skills, Vandiver said.

That plant no longer produces the pieces it was first built for and has since gone through several evolutions.

Quick Start has been a partner in several of those progressions and expansions.

Vandiver was part of the team that helped bring ZF to Gainesville and said he's seen the company become a pillar of the county's manufacturing industry.

"You've got to have a core group of companies if you're able to sustain a real manufacturing presence," he said.

"We've got that here. ZF is certainly one of the prime examples."

Tuesday's signing ceremony took place in the board room of ZF Wind Power's new $96 million facility in the Gainesville Business Park.

Administrative staff moved into the New Harvest Road headquarters a few weeks ago and the company began setting up the manufacturing floor in January.

Massive equipment is required to produce a 15-ton gear box, and officials said it will take about eight months to set up the machines and train new employees. Much of the equipment is delivered at night by police escort, as to not disrupt traffic, Umberson said.

Tim Evans, vice president of economic development for the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce, said most wind turbine companies are located in the western United States, so recruiting ZF Wind Power to Gainesville was a somewhat unexpected success.

"It's not just the number of jobs but the quality of those jobs. They're a leader in the business community for the technology skill sets that they require," he said.

"So a lot of people will be acquiring skills that haven't been available in this region in the past."