Ohio University Southern electronic media students will be more prepared for the workforce than students from other area schools because of a new addition to the program.

OUS unveiled the program’s new mobile production lab Wednesday.

“There are unlimited possibilities actually,” Joey Hayes, a freshman majoring in electronic media, said. “I don’t see any bounds anymore, there’s so much we can do with it.”

Brad Bear, the special project producer, said the production lab will help students spend less time setting up, learn equipment through hands-on experience and give them the training needed to enter the professional world.

“Before we were dragging the equipment out by hand and setting it up in a box trailer. It would take hours,” Bear said. “Everything we have to offer students in terms of the facility, is modeled after what they will work with in the field and it takes out the transitional shock by emulating what they will be working with.”

Bear said the lab will also allow students to make mistakes now rather than when they get into the workforce.

Hayes said he thinks he will be more prepared than other students from other schools.

“I’ll know what I am doing,” he said. “This is the stuff most places are working to get and we will be trained already. We are getting a jump start.”

The trailer was made available to students through the efforts of many, Bear said.

Cecil Caudill Trailer Sales sold the trailer to the university at cost, Giovanni’s Pizza sponsored the wrap that decorates the outside of the trailer which was sold by Buzz Wraps at cost, WSAZ, Time Warner, local broadcasters and other businesses also contributed, Bear said.

Tom Lemaster from Giovanni’s Pizza and an OU alumnus, said it was his honor to help with the lab.

“If we can give back to the community that helped make us a success we will,” he said.

The lab is custom built, with a 7,000 Watt Onan Generator, digital cameras, digital slow motion, replay and record machines, video and audio patch panels and other equipment.

“We didn’t want just any type of production trailer,” Don Moore, the director of electronic media at OUS, said. “We wanted one that was available to area broadcasters because it gives students experience working with professionals in the field.”

Moore said the university looks forward to continuing its partnership with area broadcasters to cover parades, football games and other events.