Trustees hear push for local tech center

During the public forum portion of the Fort Scott Community College Board of Trustees regular monthly meeting Monday evening, former Kansas Senator Bob Marshall shared his concerns relating to the proposed technical education center in Crawford County. Marshall brought to the meeting an excerpt of an August article from the Pittsburg State University Collegio, which he referred to during his public forum comments.

"I'd like to call your attention to the quotes made by (FSCC president Clayton) Dr. Tatro," Marshall said. "Seventeen percent of our operations are already in Crawford County. So I (Tatro) asked Steve (Scott, PSU president), 'Have you ever thought about how our partnership would be if we increased it?'"

Marshall said the reason he brought this up was because he is concerned with Tatro's intentions involving a potential future partnership with PSU.

"His intentions I think, are to move Fort Scott Community College to Pittsburg and Crawford County," Marshall said during his address to the board. "And I am concerned with that."

Marshall also referenced Tatro's editorial from Saturday's edition of the Fort Scott Tribune.

"I feel that it was a thinly veiled criticism of our effort to fight Fort Scott Community College and the Pittsburg State University strategic alliance," Marshall said.

Tatro touched on the topic of the proposed technical education centers in Bourbon County during his president's report, and also shared his thoughts on the subject with the Tribune after the meeting.

"I think that Crawford County will have a choice and a decision to make on their end as to whether or not they proceed," Tatro told the Tribune. "I think that if it's done correctly, there's an opportunity for (FSCC) involvement in both Crawford County and Bourbon County. I'm really excited with the local momentum that we have in terms of the city, the county, the school district, the college and local businesses all coming together. I think we've got a great plan to move forward in Bourbon County."

Tatro also discussed the possibility of FSCC expanded programming if the proposed technical education center in Bourbon County comes to fruition.

"Crawford County will do what it does, and they'll have to decide what they want to do," Tatro said. "I'm excited for what we have going in Bourbon County. I think we could be looking at new programming if we used an existing facility. I think we have an opportunity to jointly work together with USD 234 and USD 235 on some construction trades pieces, welding pieces, if we found the right building and have some collaboration. And the possibility of automotive (classes) maybe within a year-and-a-half. For the college, automotive would be new. If we can look at ways to expand construction trades, expand welding, that would be a great opportunity."

Steve Buerge, president of the Bourbon County Economic Development Council (BEDCO), addressed the board after Marshall with comments about the proposed technical education center in Crawford County, as well as the proposed technical education center in Bourbon County.

"I think we have a real good opportunity to enlarge the student enrollment at Fort Scott by having the tech center, whether or not the Board of Trustees wants to build a new building," Buerge said. "Maybe we need to start small and work up. And down the road build a nice facility once we know we have the students."

Buerge said ideally the proposed technical education center in Bourbon County should be located at a yet to be determined location just off of U.S. Highway 69, in order to achieve the desired effect of "high visibility" for the facility. In discussing the proposed technical education center in Crawford County, Buerge said eventually Crawford County commissioners will approve it.

"You're going to have to decide whether you can make money having affiliation with two facilities, one here and one in Pittsburg," Buerge said. "If you can make money and make the reputation of the college much greater by having association with two facilities, then I would say 'go for it.' All that I'm saying is that if you can make money and they're going to build it anyway maybe that's the direction to go."

In his closing comments to the board, Buerge encouraged trustees to "consider building a facility or leasing an existing facility in Bourbon County and getting the ball rolling on that thing here at home."

Workforce development

Bob Garner, vice president and market manager of Landmark National Bank in Fort Scott, spoke during the public forum in relation to what he called the "community workforce group in Fort Scott." Garner recounted a meeting that took place in November to discuss the current state of the local community workforce, or more specifically the existing and potential future labor pool in Bourbon County and Fort Scott.

Garner said those present at the meeting were Dave Martin, city manager; Heather Griffith, Fort Scott director of economic development; Lindsay Madison, executive director of Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce; Diane Gross, USD 234 superintendent; Jordan Witt, USD 234 board member; Tatro; Bob Goltra, FSCC dean of student services; Tom Gorman, FSCC director of admissions; and John Bartlesmeyer, FSCC trustee. Garner said representatives of several local businesses also attended the meeting.

"The discussion basically ensued, 'What is going on with our workforce?'" Garner said. "And 'What's the changing environment for the workforce?' And from that meeting, Dave Martin, Heather Griffith, Lindsay Madison and I sort of took the ball and ran with it. We want to focus on the existing labor pool at this point in time, not the future labor pool. So we wanted to stay away from recruiting businesses and people to Fort Scott at this point in time. From our perspective we're trying to encapsulate what we can focus on and get accomplished right now."

Garner said Martin, Griffith, Madison and himself have met approximately 20 times since mid-November "with various individuals" to discuss ways to improve the local workforce.

"From those discussions, there have been several ideas that have come about," Garner said. "In the past, USD 234 has done some mock interviews and some job fairs. At one point in time they used to actually bus students out to the various industries for them to sort of get a view of what's going on in this community. Our group, after meeting with (local) business leaders and USD 234 and the community college, we are going to try implement a mentor-mentee program. And this program will affect both juniors and seniors at the high school. We hope to kick that off in the month of February. We already have approximately 20 students that are interested in this program and we have 18 mentors at this point in time."

Garner said the mentors for the program will come from local businesses and local community members, in which background checks will be required for those individuals.