BC3 ups its training
BUTLER TWP — For 40 years, the Butler County Community College has responded to the needs of business and industry when it has gotten the call.
Now, BC3 is the one calling businesses and suggesting new ways to fulfill work force needs and anticipating growth and technology.
Bill O'Brien, vice president of Continuing Education and Off Campus Centers, said when businesses and companies have called the college, the college has stepped up to help with training programs.
But the college is now working on a plan to develop training programs that include certificate programs and, in the future, possibly a business incubator.
"In the past, we have been reactionary," O'Brien said Thursday. "Now we want to be more proactive, to go out and find out where we can help the community."
O'Brien said the community college sees three types of students, the first being the traditional degree-seeking student who is going to college to later get a job.Then there are workers in the community, he said."Those who are working and who need additional training to enhance or keep their jobs," O'Brien said.Transitional workers, who need training or a certificate to change jobs, make up the third group of students.Lisa Campbell, interim director of Business and Industry Training, has been on the job since January, calling and visiting businesses, human relations managers and some chief executive officers, who makes many contacts through the Butler County Manufacturing Consortium.BC3 is a resource partner for the consortium, which is made up of 13 manufacturers. The group's mission is to identify and meet developing manufacturing needs and enhance growth through employee training, lobbying, manufacturing techniques and administration.Campbell also administers the Workforce and Economic Development Network, or WedNet money for the state, which provides workers with the Guaranteed Free Training Program including the Information, Technology Training Program and Basic Skills Training Program. Oberg, Herr Voss, AKSteel and Penn United Technologies are just some of the county businesses to have taken advantage of this and other BC3-based training programs.She is organizing a leadership-training program that will kick off later this fall."We are helping to find what the needs are out there, build a program and good relationships with companies throughout the county," she said.
John Eckel, director of Fire, Hazardous Materials, and Business and Industry Safety Training Programs, is Campbell's counterpart at BC3.Eckel helps company's such as Penreco, Sonneborne and Indspec in Petrolia meet U.S. Environmental Protection Administration, state Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations and training.Alan McCoy, spokesman for AKSteel, said his company and the college have had a "long and successful relationship. They do a great job and the college is an asset to the community."The addition of the fire training to the Butler Township campus in 2001 has found Eckel busier than ever with more than 700 students annually. But chemical companies have also turned to BC3 for help with water treatment and wastewater training programs."We can customize courses for companies and hope to enlarge the fire school through state grants in the future," Eckel said.
BC3's certificate programs are another area ripe for growth, said Scott Campbell, director of Professional Education and Certificate Programs.Scott sets up certificate and professional training such as Act 48 training for teachers, but he is looking for ways to grow the program, including working with the Workforce Investment Board and surveying the market for high-priory needs."If we find that we need a program for personal care home administrators, then I can set up a program for that by bringing in area professionals," he said. "We can react quickly to workforce needs that way."O'Brien points out that many times transitioning workers don't need to come into a traditional degree program to change their lives.He said that educators are told by business and industry that there is a disconnect between what is taught and what the work force needs."We have been told that if a person can read and write that many times the companies can take training from there," O'Brien said, adding that with that knowledge, the Continuing Education Department is looking for a way to offer "chunks" of information that companies do need their workers to have instead of making those students spend 15 weeks in a traditional classroom setting."Say a worker doesn't need an entire physics course, but does need training in vectors — we are looking for ways to chunk that information out for companies," he said.O'Brien also explained that his department is looking for ways to work with professors and instructors in non-traditional ways, allowing them to work for less hours in the traditional classroom but pick up new hours in training and certificate programs."We're trying to take theory and put it on the practical side," Scott said.
O'Brien said now that BC3 is working to formalize and expand these continuing education programs to better serve employers and employees, he and his staff have many ideas, a wish list of sorts for the future.He said they'd like to get a director for a small business development center and a dean for work force development.A business incubator also is on the list. An incubator helps small businesses survive those first tentative years by providing work space and training at reduced costs."But we know these things cost money and you have to way the needs of the rest of the college against them," O'Brien said. "But we're working on it."
