PITTSBURG — Any discussion of the technical education center planned for Allen County is bound to contain mention of the successful operations at a similar facility up and running in Pittsburg.
The Southeast Kansas Career and Technical Education Center is a large, repurposed building on an isolated road in the northeast corner of town. Crouched in an industrial park a few miles’ distance from southeast Kansas’ only four-year university, the tech ed center offers high school and college-aged students, as well as adults, trade-specific training in masonry, welding, carpentry and HVAC repair.
In the far corner of the nearly 30,000 square-foot open-plan facility is the concrete and masonry lab. Student work stations, exhibiting projects in various stages of completion, form a group. Stacks of Monarch Cement bags line the walls.
“One of the unique things here,” points out Regena Lance, the dean of instruction at Fort Scott Community College, principal partner in the Pittsburg center, “is that when our instructor buys this clay, he knows it will last five years. [The students] can mix it, use it; then when they tear it down, they can reuse it. Which helps cut down on expenses.”
Exercising cost-saving measures is a not insignificant part of the tech ed center’s mission. Lance points out a CNC machine that was recently donated to the center.
“We’re looking for donations in Allen County as well,” chimes Lance, who, with her counterparts at Neosho County and Allen Community colleges, will be the primary facilitators for the LaHarpe-based tech ed center. “If area businesses have old welders or things they could donate to help us get started, that would just speed up the process. Almost every program out here has stuff that is donated, and every bit of that is helpful to the success of the program.”
Opposite the masonry station, at the building’s other end, are 12 welding booths and a supply of MIG welders and gas tanks.
“We also use welding simulators, so they can practice before they get out here and start using up welding rod and wire,” explained Lance. “And we have a variety of different welders that we can rotate in and out, so that students get experience on stick welding and gas.
“If we had this whole building filled with [welding machines], I think we could fill it with students. And I think we’re going to see the same thing in Allen County. This is a very high-demand occupation, and a high-wage occupation. We run three shifts here — morning, afternoon and evening. They’re all booked.”
THE PROGNOSIS is similar in the HVAC department, which occupies a massive, enclosed room in the facility’s center. It is the newest addition to the building, and still smells of fresh paint and plaster.
On Wednesday, instructor Chris Sterrett took a break from explaining to a handful of students the intricacies buried deep behind the coils of an old condenser unit.
“Listen, anybody that wants to go to work in this industry, has found work in the industry,” Sterrett said.
Citing a follow-up report from his most recent class, Sterrett explained: “I don’t have anybody that graduated in that class that is making less than $18.50 an hour.”
Sterrett has another reason to be optimistic: “We have a partnership with Trane [Inc.] that is coming down the pike. They are setting up centers of excellence around the country. Currently, they have a partnership up in Topeka, at Washburn University. And now we’re going to be the second one in Kansas.
“See, the state of Kansas owns buildings, and needs just shy of a billion dollars — like $680 million — worth of upgrades. Energy efficiency, stuff like that. Most of the stuff in the state buildings was built back in the 1950s. So, to do that work, the state of Kansas has given the nod to Trane. But there is just such a huge shortage of [qualified workers] in the industry for even what we consider the small, residential stuff. The shortage gets even more profound when you’re looking at industrial-type stuff.
“So Trane is setting up these training programs, and we’re going to be one of them. Trane will then recruit from this program. And the state of Kansas, which has all this work, would of course like to see the work done by people that live in Kansas, that were trained in Kansas. So it’s a win-win.”
PARTNERING with a corporate sponsor isn’t a new aspect in the world of vocational training. FSCC’s tech ed center has forged successful relationships with John Deere and Harley Davidson. And though it’s not on the near-horizon, Lance sees glimmers of similar potential for the site in Allen County.
After a recent discussion with Tim Henry, the owner of Iola-based Twin Motors — during which the Ford dealer listed as a top priority the training and retention of master mechanics — Lance suggested contacting Ford Motor Company about sponsoring an entry-level technician program.
The dean also has her eye on a precision agriculture program — a curricular item she thinks ideal for rural Allen County — which would equip students to excel at the intersection of technology (drones, GPS, etc.) and farming.
“That is not anything that is going to happen overnight, but it has potential.”
The focus at the moment, however, said Lance, is on things like “masonry and the construction trades and other low-cost programs that don’t require a lot of materials to start.”
Like manicuring. “We’re considering putting that over there, because it’s one we can put in quickly, and it produces a quick turnaround. The students can get a manicuring certificate and make some pretty good bucks fast, maybe while they’re going to school. And they wouldn’t have to buy a business; they can be in the corner of somebody else’s salon, and work evenings and weekends and be making money while they pay for school.”
Lance’s faith in the richness and variety of programs that the prospective tech ed center might offer — even above and beyond the version in Pittsburg — depends, for one, on the greater size of the area and facilities afforded to the colleges through a lease-agreement by LaHarpe-area businessman Ray Maloney.
And, two, the fact that the venture combines the knowledge, experience and influence of three separate colleges.
“Because of the uniqueness of each of these institutions,” said Lance, “through this collaboration, we are able to offer the students way more opportunities than we can [in Pittsburg].”
Lance’s priortity now is to mobilize the community and various principal actors in favor of the Allen County tech ed center. “One of the things we’ve learned in the past is that you have to have everybody on board. … This thing is moving at a pretty rapid rate. We don’t want to stop the momentum, because if you stop and dwell on something for too long, nothing’s going to get done.
“With the rural community we have in Allen County, we need something for our students.” Current state legislation, as Lance describes it, “does not reflect very well on what’s going to happen to public schools here. … So let’s provide the area with a unique opportunity that will benefit all of our students and give us successful community members, and a successful community.”
FOR YEARS, the signal grievance that area companies — and prospective industry — levelled against southeast Kansas was its chronic absence of a skilled workforce.
In an interview with the Register last year, Pittsburg’s chamber of commerce president and the area’s director of economic development, Blake Benson, was unstinting in his hopes for the center and his faith that it could help reverse the decades’ long trend of economic decline:
“I think this will create the single biggest impact, economic development-wise, that we have seen. … I can assure you that when a business is looking to locate into the area, that’s one of the first things we’re going to show them. Every spring and fall that technical education center is going to be churning out a fresh crop of potential employees. See, when we get the [request for proposal] from someone who is interested in investing in our community, that’s one of the first questions they ask — ‘Tell us about your workforce, what’s the availability, what are their skills?’ Now these businesses have something they can put their finger on and know exactly where to go to find employees.”
ACROSS FROM masonry and welding, on the opposite side of the HVAC unit, stands a row of modest student-produced sheds and outbuildings, the heart of the tech ed center’s carpentry unit.
Wednesday morning, the program’s instructor, Kim Coates, a large man with a ball cap and a trim white moustache, stood on a ladder in front of one of the outbuildings. He rested one hand on the roof and held a level in the other. The tech center was in between classes, so quiet, but one student remained to discuss his project with the 59-year-old Coates.
“We’re just going over some technicalities,” explained Coates. “He wanted to know: ‘If you have an old roof, how do you tell what pitch it is?’”
“Well, how do you?” asked Lance.
“This is a four-foot level,” said Coates. He rested the far end of the tool against the slant of the roof. “So, you’ve got to hold it where the bubble is exactly level. And then” — the instructor produced a tape measure from his hip — “you’ve got to measure straight down [from the near end of the level to the surface of the roof]. If it’s a four-foot level and its 20 inches for every foot, then that’s five inches. Four times five is 20 — so it’s a 5-12.
Coates turned back to the student. “If it happened to be a 12 inches, what pitch would it be?”
“Six?” said the student.
“Twelve inches,” said Coates. “See, if I had a 12-inch drop and four feet, that’d be a three-inch drop for every foot. So what would we be at? Three and a half, right?”
“Right,” said the student.
“Good deal,” said Coates. “If it was a 16-inch drop, what would it be?”
“That one’s more complicated,” said Lance.
“No, it’s not,” said Coates, pulling on the brim of his cap. “Four will go into 16, what?”
“Oh,” said Lance.
“It’s a four-foot level,” said Coates.
“Yeah,” said Lance.
“Four will go into 16?” asked Coates. “Four times.”
“Now, if it was a two-foot level and it was eight inches,” said Coates.
(I looked down at my notebook and pretended to scribble something so that he wouldn’t call on me.)
“Two will go into eight four times — it’d be a 4-12.”
Lance is currently pursuing a proposal at the state-level, which would allow students to earn college math credit when they complete classes like Coates’.
“Listen,” said Coates, who has produced state and national carpentry champions in his years teaching in the program, “if all you did was teach in the classroom and you weren’t out here, you’d be missing out. There are things you can only know by being out here, in it.”
