Three Northeast Texas community colleges put aside service delivery areas and matters of "turf" to create Centers of Excellence that provided training throughout a nine county area. This consortium; along with 14 manufacturers, seven economic development corporations, and the regional workforce board, led the change in training a highly skilled workforce while reducing instructional expenditures for each college. Over 1250 individual workers received over 33,000 hours of training to prepare them to compete in the global economy. The Regional Advanced Manufacturing Academy (RAMA) has become a leading change agent in the way colleges and businesses can collaborate to improve the quality of workforce development while reducing the costs of operation. (Contains 1 table.)