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From woodworkingnetwork.com: “Wood Industry Careers, Partnerships Promoted at WoodLINKs” —  Wood industry members, teachers, principals, and even students across the nation gathered to build industry/education partnerships, educate teachers, and promote the wood industry as a career of choice at local WoodLINKS USA teacher in-service events over the past few months.

WoodLINKS USA sponsored nine local teacher in-service events in Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Kansas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Ohio. Michigan and Illinois in-services will be held in the spring and one in Texas during the summer of 2012.

To promote these events, an invitation was sent to every high school in each of the nine states. The in-service events were held in a variety of locations: Mesa Community College-Arizona, Madison College-Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt High School-Ohio, Tiger Stop-Washington, Pittsburg State University- Kansas, and the Virginia Higher Education Center-Virginia.

Topics at the in-service events covered a wide range of industry related skills and concerns including public perception of the wood industry, veneering, inexpensive project ideas for the classroom/lab, CNC equipment, LEAF-Forestry Education Curriculum, Woodwork Career Alliance of North America Skill Standards, the impact of the wood industries “carbon footprint”, trends in adhesives, economic impact of the wood industry, software programs, spray finishing, cutting tools, applied math, and project management were some of the topics covered at the various locations.

Adjunct Professor Pat Connelly shared his reason for attending the Ohio inservice, “I wanted to learn more about teaching CNC concepts with my program and I know WoodLINKS is a big proponent of that.” Several hundred teachers, administrators, principals, and students descended on the in-service events over the past couple of months. Troy Spear’s students at Theodore Roosevelt High School gave a demonstration of Cabinet Vision driving their Omni Tech CNC router.

During the Wisconsin in-service, Patrick Molzahn hosted a WCA Skill Standards Evaluator Training session. Attendees also toured Wisconsin Built, a leading manufacturer of fixtures, casegoods, and specialty products.

Doug Hague of Pittsburg State University (PSU) exposed attendees to high tech wood manufacturing equipment used in the PSU program. One of the key ingredients to hosting a relevant teacher in-service event is industry partners. Industry partners bring expertise and business understanding to the table.

The in-service at Pittsburg State University dealt with the problem of skilled worker shortage in their, “Industry’s Perception/Demand” session. Industry partners can also help change the public’s misconception of the wood industry. Mark Roberts in Arizona said, “Our goal is to change the perception of the woodworking industry by focusing on those things that hit the parent’s pocketbook, showcase highly motivated and productive students, and the relationship with our industry partners”.

The teachers need to see and hear about the latest equipment, products and processes. At the Ohio inservice, attendees were also treated to a live video conference with Travis Allen, an instructor at Northcentral Technical College in Antigo, Wisconsin. “Video conferencing with Travis was a spectacular opportunity that I wanted to share with the attendees,” stated Theodore Roosevelt instructor Troy Spear.

“While I know there are other schools out there, NTC’s facility is a great example of industry education partnerships, as it (the NTC program) was funded in part by industry. Many of my industry partners made the comment how nice it would be if there were a program was like NTC,” Spear added.

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From lacrossetribune.com: “Western’s evolution: It’s all in the time capsule” – Alumni and school officials honored Western Technical College’s history and uncovered pieces of the past Monday for the institution’s 100th anniversary celebration.

Community leaders praised the college’s history of educating and training students for the changing workforce.

“Western is a place where dreams begin and lives change,” said Sandra Schultz, a 1987 graduate. “Thank you for making dreams become a reality.”

Western opened in 1912 as the La Crosse Continuation and Adult Schools, after the Legislature passed a 1911 law establishing a vocational school system.

Jayme Hansen graduated from Western in 1998 and found a job at Northern Engraving. Later, he took a new a job in Western’s marketing department as a graphic designer. “They taught me the basics that I needed to get into the workforce,” he said. “I’ll be forever grateful for that.”

Western President Lee Rasch unpacked a time capsule filled with pamphlets, newspapers and other items from the college’s 75th anniversary.

Contents included:

• Floppy disks.
• A May 9, 1987, edition of the Tribune, with a tease on the cover for a story on page three: “Jobless rate at low point for decade.”
• Interior design magazines. (Western officials decided to end the interior design program last year because of more than $2 million in budget cuts.)

For all the evidence of change, the time capsule was also proof of Western’s long-standing tradition of evolution, Rasch said. Many programs in the school’s history have been modified, added or cut.

“It’s in our DNA,” he said.

The centennial is a testament to Western’s success in adapting its programming to the needs of employers and of students, said Jessica Klinkner, a marketing student. “It shows how strong and determined this college is.”

More change is in store for Western as college officials continue to tweak the curriculum. More students are interested in earning credits that transfer to a four-year university, and many employers want skilled workers trained in the newest technology, Rasch said.

“Employers are looking for the full package,” he said. “They have a challenge, too.”

Eventually, college officials want the school to be more energy efficient and serve more students, Rasch said. “We’re determined to be successful,” he said. “The future of Western is one that is very bright.”

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From wisconsinrapidstribune.com: “IT professional helps MSTC students” – Robert W. Van Dyke, Bull’s Eye Credit Union’s IT manager, works with Mid-State Technical College students as interns in order to complete their degrees.

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From wxow.com: “Western Technical College Celebrates 100 Years” – Western Technical College celebrated 100 years of education on Monday, May 14th.

Western Technical College was established in 1912 and at that time, vocational schools started in abandoned warehouses or shops. According to Western faculty and staff, Western Technical College was one of the first ‘specifically vocational’ colleges established in the country.

100 years later, faculty members, alumni, and current students who attend Western listened to stories of the past, and shared hopes for the future of their school.

Dr. Lee Rasch, the President, unveiled items from a time capsule put away 25 years ago.

Floppy disks, and a ‘state of the art calculator’ at the time were just a few of those items.

Dr. Rasch said Western has always been on the cutting edge of technology and while that’s always changing, he said the passion of the students and faculty members at Western is always constant.

“It’s in the DNA in this organization and our faculty and staff are committed to do everything that we can to help someone succeed. No matter where they are, or where they are in life it’s our absolute commitment. So you see that in 1912 and you still see that in our organization today,”smiled Rasch.

A table of items from 2012 will be placed in a new time capsule that won’t be opened until 2062.

Dr. Rasch adds that going forward, the biggest challenge is to be current and flexible in the programs they offer–but to do it in a way that is sustainable and affordable.

View video from WXOW

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From gazettextra.com: “Old, new come together at BTC commencement” – BELOIT — On Saturday, more than 500 students crossed the stage at First Christian Church in Beloit during Blackhawk Technical College’s commencement.

They included fresh-faced youths and second- or third-career adults. They were single men and women without ties; they were parents and grandparents. They wore dress shoes and flip-flops.

All different kinds of people with one thing in common: They were continuing the technical college tradition that started 100 years ago when Wisconsin established a Board of Vocational and Adult Education.

It was appropriate that Saturday’s ceremony was a blend of old values and traditions with new ideas and trends.

– History repeating itself: College President Dr. Thomas Eckert reminded students that Blackhawk was first established because the state recognized the need for trained workers to meet manufacturing demands. Today, manufacturing is seeing a resurgence in the state, and the health care and technical fields are as strong as ever.

– Looking back—but only for a moment: Silvia Shephard, a legal administrative professional and the student of the year, was the student speaker.

“When I was working on this speech, I looked for words of wisdom from past graduation speakers,” Shephard said.

But after attending a leadership conference, she decided hers was the class of the future: forward looking and unafraid.

She encouraged students spend just a moment thinking about their ultimate dreams, their goals for their lives.

Then she said, “Now let go of everything you think might stand in its way.”

Don’t let those dreams collect dust the shelves of busy lives, Shephard advised.

– Tradition and change: Keynote speaker Thomas Westrick has served on Blackhawk Technical College’s board for 19 years and has spent his life working in the field of adult education.

He took a look at the early days of technical college education and shared with students some of the early educational choices such as “fountain pen tip grinding,” “cobbling” and “child psychology”—a course only offered to women.

“Police problems” was another early course.

“I’d like to see the reading list for that course,” Westrick joked.

Westrick noted that only a few of those early courses, such as “arc welding” and “automobile engine repair,” were still around.

“Blackhawk Technical College has had to reinvent itself numerous times,” Westrick said. “You may have to redesign yourselves, too.”

Unlike the job market of the 20th century, when workers often worked for the same company all of their lives, often with the same set of skills, today’s workers will have to continue to learn.

He offered students advice from Reid Hoffman, author of “The Start Up of You:”

– Don’t let the title of your degree or your certificate put you in a box.

– Build relationships both inside and outside of your field.

– Prepare for change.

Finally, don’t get caught in your past.

– New careers and new choices: Students graduated with degrees in a variety of traditional subjects ranging from accounting to welding.

Some of the traditionally female fields, such as early childhood education, continue to produce only female graduates. Other traditionally male fields, such as electric power distribution and air conditioning, heating and refrigeration technology, produced only male graduates.

Still, evidence of changing career choices were all over the program. Two women graduated from the welding program. Men graduated in a variety of health care fields.

– An old-fashioned rendering: In the past two decades, attempts to “improve” the national anthem have become increasingly disconcerting. “The Star Spangled Banner” has been jazzed up, countrified, rocked and whooped with mixed success.

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From thenorthwestern.com: “FVTC graduates more than 850 during 100-year anniversary celebration” – It was a whirlwind week that carried over into Sunday for Rachel Werner.

The 22-year-old Occupational Therapy Assistant program student at Fox Valley Technical College finished her fieldwork earlier this week and then accepted a position where she will start in June.

But the most important part of the past seven or so days came when she walked across the stage inside the Kolf Sports Center to collect her FVTC diploma.

“It didn’t hit me until I pulled into the parking lot that I’m here to graduate,” said Werner, a 2008 graduate of Winnebago Lutheran Academy. “(The ceremony) was kind of a blur and before I knew it I was walking across the stage.

“There are no words to describe (the feeling).”

Werner was one of roughly 850 students who accepted their diplomas in Sunday’s 2½-hour ceremony, which honored the 100-year anniversary of the school.

The keynote speech was given by outgoing Chairman of the FVTC Board of Trustees, William Fitzpatrick, while James Reider, a non-traditional student who graduated from the AODA-Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Associate program, provided the student address.

“All of the speakers were very touching and moving,” said Samantha Calabresa, 20, who received her diploma in the Administrative Professional program. “I caught myself tearing up through lots of them. This experience is just so overwhelming and they hit everything right on the head.”

Both Calabresa and Werner made the walk across the stage with jobs already lined up.

Calabresa will continue to work at Northwestern Mutual where she participated in an internship, while Werner expects to start working at Mayville Nursing & Rehab.

“It’s a huge relief. I didn’t think I was going to get a job this soon,” Werner said. “I was expecting to be searching all summer long. Now that I have one, it’s the biggest weight off my shoulders.”

Calabresa echoed those sentiments.

“It’s so nice to have a job right out of college,” said Calabresa, a Berlin High School graduate. “It feels wonderful. I’m so excited to be done. The nerves are over and it’s just nice to be finally done.”

Sunday’s ceremony was not only special for the graduates, but also for the faculty and staff as FVTC celebrated its 100-year anniversary.

In addition to multiple mentions during the program, those attending the ceremony were treated to a video on the history of Wisconsin technical colleges.

“When you think about it the men and women that are going to be graduating this year it will be the only group that will graduate in the 100 year in our existence,” FVTC President Dr. Susan May said in the days leading up to the ceremony. “It’s always a special time for any organization when they stop to celebrate these huge milestone years. To think they are part of it, when our century turned, I think it’s pretty cool.”

Over the course of the 100 years, there have been obvious changes but May said the core mission of the school has always stayed the same — no matter what was being taught in the classrooms.

“How we deploy that mission, how we deliver programs and services to people has changed dramatically,” May said. “But one thing that I think is fascinating is our core mission for who we are and what we do for our community really hasn’t fundamentally changed in all of that time.”

Which means FVTC will continue to turn out graduates like Werner, Calabresa and the rest of their brethren who are ready to step right into the workforce.

Even if reaching that goal wasn’t always easy.

“Usually right around finals or when those big projects at the end of the semester were due, I would be like ‘Seriously? I could just quit and get a regular job,’” Werner said. “But it’s definitely worth it. Now, having the diploma in my hands, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

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From cvtc.edu: “CVTC faculty and staff honored for excellence in education” – Chippewa Valley Technical College was well-represented at the 76th annual conference of the Wisconsin Association for Career and Technical Education held recently in Appleton.

President Bruce Barker was honored by WACTE, being chosen by the association as Wisconsin’s Outstanding Career and Technical Education Leader.

Two instructors from CVTC’s Center for Behavioral Sciences and Civic Effectiveness were honored by Chippewa Valley Association for Career and Technical Education (CVACTE) for their excellence in the classroom.  Flint Thompson received the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award and Kristi Hagen received the Outstanding New Teacher of the Year Award.

Dan Flaten, a business management instructor; Janet Goldsmith, a program assistant, and Lynne Lindbo, an admissions assistant, received Longevity Awards from WACTE for their 25 years of membership.

The award winners were recently honored at luncheon hosted by CVACTE.

WACTE is a professional organization of over 800 teachers, counselors, school administrators, teacher educators, support staff, and business/industry partners.  The organization’s mission is to unite individuals involved in career and technical education, to provide professional development, to encourage leadership in the political arena, and to promote innovative change to enhance lifelong learning.

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From greenbaypressgazette.com: “Job prospects improve for college graduates” – College graduates face better job prospects this year than in any since the recession.

That doesn’t mean finding a job is easier than it’s been, but there are more of them.

“In general, we’re seeing certain occupations or sectors that are getting better,” said Jennifer Pigeon, manager of career services and K-14 relations at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay.

That view is seconded by Amanda Nycz, director of career services at St. Norbert College in De Pere, and Linda Peacock-Landrum, who holds the same position at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

“This past year we’ve definitely seen an increase in hiring. There have been more job postings and an increased presence (of employers) at job fairs,” Peacock-Landrum said.

St. Norbert senior Emily Collins, 21, who graduates today, said classmates who’ve gotten jobs give her hope.

“I think the jobs are out there as long as you are doing your part and looking for them,” Collins said. “It’s really helpful to at least have a little plan.”

Technical college graduates find jobs quicker than graduates of four-year schools, mostly because they often are training for specific jobs. And more of their students are older and have some work experience.

Mark Hickman will graduate Monday from NWTC. Hickman, 54, was a warehouse foreman at Bay Shipbuilding in Sturgeon Bay when he was laid off in September 2010.

“I always preached to my workers to keep your skills fresh,” he said.

Taking his own advice, he entered NWTC’s two-year supply chain management program, which he completed in a year and a half.

He was hired by The Manitowoc Co., where he is a warehouse supervisor.

“The manager said he hired me because I had 30 years’ work experience and I upgraded my skills. He said that was the key ingredient,” he said.

Networking remains one of the best tools for finding jobs, Nycz said.

“This is my sixth professional job. Every single one, I knew someone at the place I ended up working,” she said.

Up to 70 percent of jobs are gotten through knowing someone, Nycz said.

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From thenorthwestern.com: “More college grads return for a technical education” – Kim Kussow has met the cold reality of today’s job market.

The Appleton-native graduated in 2007 from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a degree in architecture, but she said she couldn’t land a job as the pool of candidates grew and the number of opportunities plummeted.

Like many recent grads struggling to find jobs, Kussow, now 27 years old, turned to a technical college to supplement her education with more career-specific skills to become more marketable to employers.

She graduated one year ago from Fox Valley Technical College with an associate’s degree in construction management and landed a job in Milwaukee within a month.

“I think the combination of the two degrees really helped put me above the rest of the competition,” Kussow said.

Technical college officials said they’re seeing a lot of students in similar situations.

Fox Valley Technical College has enrolled 2,841 students so far in 2012 who already hold bachelors or masters degrees, according to enrollment data provided by the college. In 2011, FVTC enrolled 3,107 students who already had at least four years of higher education.

Those numbers also included individuals who are taking just one or two classes, but many are pursuing additional or new degrees, FVTC officials said.

“I think this notion that any student is a completely finished product and fully prepared for their life after their initial education experience is dying. This idea that somebody is going to go and successfully complete a four or two year degree and then be educationally prepared for the rest of their life is not true anymore,” said Chris Mathney, vice president of instructional services at FVTC.

Statewide, 34,100 students with bachelors or masters degrees enrolled in a technical college in 2011, according to data provided by FVTC.

Firefighter-in-training Todd Hill said he believes about one-third of his classmates at FVTC are seeking a new degree or supplementing their current degree.

The 32-year-old from Wild Rose said he enrolled at FVTC because he couldn’t find a job related to his bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Alabama. At first, he joined the U.S. Army, but then he got married and moved to Wisconsin with his wife. Now, he’s studying in FVTC’s wild land firefighting program.

“It’s so incredibly hard to be a teacher in music. You really have to want to starve before you land yourself a job,” Hill said.

Matt Pfeiffer, 34, of Menasha, said he also struggled to find work related to his college major. He graduated in 1999 with a degree in computer science but was never able to find a job outside of retail.

He is now studying in FVTC’s General Motors Automotive Service Education Program.

“I tried getting interviews here and there and nothing really panned out,” he said. “I didn’t really pick something I was passionate about, so I guess that’s another reason I didn’t pursue (a job in computer science) too much.”

Matheny said he believes technical colleges in particular are seeing so many students returning for additional education because the colleges are affordable and dialed in to the needs of local employers.

“We know what our employers want in employees, and we design our curriculum around the types of things that are going to get people employed or promoted or on to the next stage of their career,” Matheny said.

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From fdlreporter.com: “MPTC sponsors contest to find longest running engine” – It was an afternoon filled with torque, horsepower and exhaust emissions as eight regional high schools participated in the eighth annual Moraine Park Technical College Endurance Challenge May 10 at the Fond du Lac campus.

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From steventspointjournal.com: “Technical college graduates face bright job future” – Anthony Nedbal is bullish on his economic future.

He’ll receive his associate degree in information technology computer networking from Northcentral Technical College on May 19. As of July 1, the 20-year-old from Woodruff will be a computer network engineer earning $41,500 a year at Lakeland Union, the high school he graduated from in 2010.

Nedbal graduated from high school in the midst of the recession, and he’s graduating from NTC during a sluggish recovery, but he never really thought he would have trouble finding a job.

“It’s one of the reasons I went to NTC,” he said. “I was pretty confident.”

The employment numbers of technical college graduates across the state back up Nebal’s optimism. Among the 18,036 responders who filled out a post-graduation survey, 88 percent of the 2011 graduates from the Wisconsin Technical College System found jobs within six months of graduation. Most, 71 percent, were employed directly in their fields.

NTC reported similar results: 89 percent of 1,113 graduates surveyed were employed. When factoring in students who continued their education by transferring to a four-year college, the number jumps to more than 90 percent.

“This is great news for our graduates and great economic news for Wisconsin,” said Dan Clancy, president of the Wisconsin Technical College System. “Our graduates are finding success and contributing to the economic recovery in our state.”

The average salary for all new NTC graduates is $33,307, the school reports.

NTC is producing graduates that fit well with the needs of employers, said Suzi Mathias, director of transfer and placement at NTC.

“We try our very best to connect (students) with the skills that are needed in the industry,” she said.

For Nedbal, it all makes for a good start in life. He plans to stay in the Woodruff area for a while, building experience and saving money. Then he might think about moving into an administrative level in his field.

“I’ll be fiscally ready, have a few years of experience, and a high standing to go out with experience,” he said.

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From wqow.com: “Partnership helping CTVC students and housing needs in Chippewa Falls” –  A partnership in Chippewa Falls is helping local families with the American dream. The Chippewa County Housing Authority partnered with Chippewa Valley Technical College.

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From biztimes.com: “Students need ‘reality check’ about jobs – Manufacturing, and manufacturing careers, have been getting quite a bit of coverage lately.

Employers have made desperate pleas for skilled workers. There is a heightened awareness of the value manufacturing brings to a community. And, there is a growing, albeit slowly, recognition of the innovation and intelligence that goes into today’s manufacturing jobs. Governor Walker has launched his College and Career Readiness Council and the President and his Education Secretary have also been extolling the virtues of college and career readiness.

That is all good. Manufacturing is critical to the future success of Wisconsin. Not only for the 425,000 employed in the sector, but for the hundreds of thousands that exist because of manufacturing. No other sector has the job multiplier effect that manufacturing does.

But let’s not let old paradigms drive our future needs for a qualified workforce.

We know that about 30 percent of the jobs in Wisconsin will require a bachelor’s degree or more. That means 70 percent do not, with the vast majority of those requiring technical education beyond high school. What seems to be missing in the current system is a broad understanding by today’s students of the jobs available. They simply cannot select an occupation that they don’t know exists. They do not know what a welder does; they do not know what a CNC Operator is; they have never seen the inside of a modern day, advanced manufacturing facility; and they do not have accurate job data and salary information. The same applies to their parents. And all of us (business, educators, parents, media) should share that blame.

The WMC Foundation recently conducted more than 50 listening sessions with over 300 manufacturers from around Wisconsin. Since completing that road trip, we have been sharing what we heard. One thing that became clear is that we need to change the definition of “success.” As a parent, you want your children to be healthy and happy, doing something they love, and able to live comfortably. Isn’t that most people’s definition of success? This is America, and everyone should be encouraged to pursue their passion. However, we owe students a reality check and perhaps even a “Job Probability Index” – what are the odds they will find a job in their chosen field. We should discuss the passion they wish to pursue, provide information on what it will take to reach it, explore the costs involved, evaluate the job prospects upon completion, study the level of demand for their degree/career, look at salary expectations and consider the return on investment.

If every 16-year-old, and their parents, have all this information and a full understanding of (and open mind to) all the occupations available, we will work through this shortage. Currently though, our definition of success seems driven by a mentality that master’s degree is better than bachelor’s degree, bachelor’s degree is better than technical degree, and technical degree is better than work experience. The workplace is not that linear and easily defined. Right now, there are shortages of engineers, welders, CNC operators, machinists, masons. Some of those require work experience, some apprenticeships, some technical degrees, some 4-year degrees or more. Let’s make sure everyone knows the market, because the market will drive us to success.

As we focus on “college and career readiness,” we might want to put “career” first.

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From fox11online.com: “High school students compete in auto repair contest” – MEQUON – Consider it the state finals for auto repair. The 20 best automotive students from 10 Wisconsin high schools put their skills to the test Thursday, May 10th, racing to fix Ford Fusions.

“They’re all bugged identically. Basically, they will get a work order and here’s the problems,” Roy Hinz, spokesperson from AAA said.

At Milwaukee Area Technical College’s North Campus in Mequon, ten teams of two worked to fix the mechanically bugged vehicles. The goal was to get them back to working factory condition within the 90 minute allotted time.

“Just checking fuses and other stuff that can go wrong,” Senior Dustin Westphal from Grafton High School said. This was Westphal’s first Ford AAA Auto Skills Competition. “Just going to take it like any other practice, I guess,” Westphal said.

Along with Grafton, West Allis Central High School, Badger High School from Lake Geneva and Washington Park High School from Racine were among the participating schools from our area.

Washington Park High School actually took home the national title in a separate competition in April.

“You can’t get too hyped up about it because you end up making mistakes. So just be calm, cool, collected like you’re doing another practice,” Senior Ryan Herman said.

For Herman, winning in the past does not guarantee the top spot in this competition. He was in charge of engine problems while his partner worked on other bugs like bad bulbs or air pressure. “Say we have a cam sensor problem where I’ll take care of that, or a maybe a misfire and I’ll be taking care of that too,” Herman said.

In order to win, the team must have a perfect vehicle, meaning it’s not necessarily who finishes first, but who cruises through the contest with no mistakes. “It’s not only a time test, but a quality test,” Hinz said.

The winners move on to the national competition in Dearborn, Mich. and they get an automotive scholarship to MATC. Grafton High School won the title last year.

The results this year are as follows…

1st place: Racine Washington Park – students Ryan Herman & Zachary Rosenquist; instructor David Dixon
2nd place: Grafton – students Dustin Westphal & Jordan Kreutzer; instructor Carl Hader
3rd place: McFarland – students Chris Allen & Jimmy Walker, instructor Dan Klecker

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From layover.com: “PTDI Certification Benefits Programs Facing Changes in a Technological Age” – Alexandria, Virginia – As technology changes the face of the truck driving industry, programs offering courses certified by the Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI) are reaping the benefits, according to driver training program administrators from Wisconsin to North Carolina.

“The dynamics of individuals seeking jobs has changed,” said Robert Behnke, department chair, Commercial Vehicle Education, at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisc. “I see people choosing this as a career path who are more technologically savvy, but they don’t have a specific background in trucking, nor have they even grown up in the farm industry and been around big vehicles. We’re seeing folks from different backgrounds—accountants, doctors, and lawyers—coming into the industry because they’ve seen a tremendous amount of change in what they were doing and they are looking for a career change. Companies want to be assured that these people have specific truck driver training. I believe PTDI has played a part in that, because when it comes down to companies asking about training, safety is always number one.”

Kim Carsten, school director for Commercial Driver Training in West Babylon, N.Y., has also seen a change in the background of her students in recent years. “I’ve seen financial people, people from Wall Street, from the computer technology field, coming to our program,” Carsten said. “They need jobs, and they see from the advertisements that there is always a need for CDL drivers and that these are good paying jobs for entry-level drivers.”

And the fact that students are more technologically savvy only benefits programs with PTDI certification, as Carsten pointed out. “In the past three years, I have seen an increase in the number of students who know about PTDI, and much of that is a result of their Internet research and the fact that motor carriers mention PTDI on their web site,” she said. “A lot of our students do research the PTDI web site themselves and when they complete our critique at the end of our program, they say they came here because of PTDI. Students definitely have become savvy about industry standards, and about the industry in general, because of the Internet.”

Rudy Fox, director of truck driver training for Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, which received PTDI course recertification at two locations and initial certification at a third, has noted similar interest in his programs. “Definitely, the economy has led more people to the trucking industry. Some are changing careers not by choice but because they’ve lost their jobs. We’re seeing that especially in our area in North Carolina where the industry is textiles and furniture, and that industry’s almost gone, so with unemployment here close to 10 percent, people have turned to trucking. Companies are seeking us out because they know we’re giving our students quality training. We have more recruiters now than we ever have in the past few years because of PTDI. Our reputation has grown quite well in western North Carolina; all the major trucking companies recognize our program, and one of the reasons is the PTDI certification.”

Insurance companies as well are recognizing the significance of PTDI certification. “A lot of insurance companies, from what I understand, recommend that trucking companies hire students from PTDI programs,” Fox said. “Most trucking companies are greatly influenced by insurance companies, so they can’t hire student drivers that don’t have quality training.”

Although Behnke said it may seem “unrealistic for someone to make that type of career change, especially later in life,” he believes “the industry is turning a corner with positive changes and more emphasis on the trucking industry’s image. I think there are a lot of great changes coming our way as people look at the trucking industry as more of a career than just a job.”

Carsten, who has been with Commercial Driver Training for 28 years, adds, “I definitely think that PTDI’s making a difference in the type of drivers we’re putting on the road.”

The six truck driver training programs that recently received recertification are Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute in Hudson and Hickory, N.C.; Commercial Driver Training Inc., in West Babylon, N.Y.; Delaware Technical and Community College in Georgetown, Del.; Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisc.; and Lebanon County Career School in Lebanon, Pa.  Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute in Dallas, N.C., received initial course certification.

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From greenbaypressgazette.com: “Community Memorial Hospital honors Meyer with Values Award” – Community Memorial Hospital named Stephanie Meyer as the recipient of its Living Our Values award.

Meyer was nominated by her co-workers who say she believes in and applies the CMH core values of trust, care, respect, quality and community in everything she does.

“Stephanie’s dedication to our mission, vision, and values has earned her this recognition,” said Dan DeGroot, Community Memorial Hospital CEO.

As a registered nurse in CMH Surgical Services, Meyer cares for patients before, during and after surgery.

In addition to caring for patients in the operating room, she coordinates pre-surgical visits for patients who need lab, X-ray or physical therapy, and Meyer consults patients on how to prepare for their procedure and helps them plan for their at-home post-op care.

Meyer earned an associate degree from Northcentral Technical College in Wausau in 2004 and a bachelor of science in nursing from UW-Green Bay in 2007. She has been with Community Memorial Hospital since 2007.

“I realize how important it is to treat families and patients with respect and concern,” Meyer said. “I want patients and families to feel comfortable and know we will take the best possible care of them.”

Meyer lives in Coleman with her husband, Lucas, and sons Alexander, 3, and Beckett, 6 months.

Meyer is the daughter of Jennifer and the late Robert Forrest of Suring and of the late Keith Gruber of Coleman.

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From m.jsonline.com: “Stations to power green vehicles” – An electric car isn’t going anywhere when it runs out of juice, and a vehicle powered by compressed natural gas obviously needs to be refilled from time to time.

So as gasoline prices continue hovering near $4 a gallon, the question arises: Can you buy an alternative-fuel vehicle and count on finding a place to fill it up when needed?

Efforts to provide that are picking up steam.

The City of Milwaukee, for instance, has tapped $35,000 in federal stimulus funds to open five charging stations, including one at 735 N. Water St. and another outside the main entrance of Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin that are already open. Others are planned for Brady St., the Clarion Hotel near Mitchell International Airport and a west side site not yet chosen.

“We’re trying to address the chicken and the egg issue – which should go first: charging stations or people buying more of these vehicles?” said Erick Shambarger, manager at Milwaukee’s Office of Environmental Sustainability, during the Green Vehicles Workshop Friday at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Once the city’s stations are completed, there will be eight public charging stations in Milwaukee County, including two at Milwaukee Area Technical College campuses and one at Schlitz Park in Milwaukee.

The charging stations are part of a broader deployment of clean vehicles and fleets financed both by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and by major corporations.

AT&T Inc. has expanded its alternative fuel vehicle fleet to 200 vehicles, including plug-in electric delivery vans and compressed natural gas, or CNG, vehicles. That’s an increase from 50 alternative fuel vehicles two years ago, said AT&T, which aims to reduce operating costs by saving on fuel.

Lorrie Lisek, executive director of Wisconsin Clean Cities, a nonprofit that educates consumers and fleet owners about alternative fuel vehicles, said interest in shifting away from gasoline and diesel is growing as fuel prices remain high.

Forecasters at the Energy Information Administration last month projected that the price of crude oil will average more than $100 a barrel through the end of next year, and the price of regular unleaded will remain near $4 a gallon, 6% above last year, during the summer driving season.

The number of organizations that are members of Wisconsin Clean Cities has swelled to more than 60, she said, from 14 a year ago.

Working with the state government, Clean Cities aims to deploy more than 280 alternative fuel vehicles for fleets across the state by the end of next year, as part of a $15 million stimulus-funded initiative that is paying for hybrid-electric utility trucks for Milwaukee County, CNG vehicles in Bayfield, hybrid-electric school buses in Oconomowoc and alternative fueling stations across the state.

Altogether, the program aims to displace 1.6 million gallons of petroleum per year, she said.

The city is putting charging stations in high-profile spots in part to attract tourists with electric vehicles, since Milwaukee has been slower than other markets like Chicago to have electric vehicles for sale.

“We haven’t gone crazy with our investment,” Shambarger said. “Other cities have a lot more charging stations than we do. Our decision to start with five reflects Milwaukee’s demographics but is still providing that initial signal that we have the infrastructure here.”

Private investment is taking place too, whether at Schlitz Park for a charging station in Milwaukee or at Kwik Trip stations from Sturtevant to La Crosse that are adding compressed natural gas fueling capabilities.

La Crosse-based Kwik Trip will host a natural gas trade show and summit this week and unveil an alternative-fuels station that sells a wide range of fuels.

The Milwaukee workshop for the first time featured an all-electric Nissan Leaf, which just became available for test drives and ordering in recent months, said Kip Malmstadt of Boucher Nissan in Greenfield.

Malmstadt gets a lot of questions about the vehicle’s range – which is 100 to 110 miles.

“It’s really a daily driver – most people drive back and forth to work 30 miles a day,” he said. “Because of that, it’s the perfect car for that use. It’s not a car you want to go on vacation with, unless you’re going on vacation to Sheboygan.”

Compared with current prices at the pump, a typical Leaf driver may save $1,100 a year on fueling, Malmstadt said. The Leaf costs $35,000 to $38,000; tax credits can reduce the cost by $7,500.

The local network of natural gas fueling stations may also expand. The city of Milwaukee, which has eight CNG garbage trucks in service and another 13 on order, has installed several fueling stations that are used to fill the trucks.

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From cisionwire.com: “Wisconsin Green Vehicles Workshop Features Propane Autogas Technology from Alliance AutoGas Partner Charter Fuels” – Alliance AutoGas fueling partner Charter Fuels shared the benefits of clean, affordable propane autogas for fleets at the ninth annual “Driving Toward 2020: Green Vehicles Workshop.” Hosted at the Milwaukee Area Technical College by Wisconsin Clean Cities May 4, the all-day event explored the latest trends in the alternative fuel industry and gave students and community members a chance to experience green vehicles firsthand.

The event featured alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles of all types from major vehicle manufacturers, including Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Josh Budworth of Charter Fuels showcased a propane autogas-powered 2011 Ford F-150.

“This workshop was a unique opportunity to get younger generations excited about alternative fuel technology and educate them about the most viable options on the market today, like propane autogas,” said Budworth, who participated in a panel covering propane autogas, natural gas, ethanol and electricity. “Autogas is an American-made clean fuel that saves fleets thousands annually on fuel costs, even with as little as one autogas vehicle.”

Charter Fuels recently helped the City of Marinette, Wis., convert a police cruiser to autogas, and they expect fuel cost savings of around $5,000 annually. A partner in the national Alliance AutoGas network, Charter helps fleets switch to autogas through vehicle conversions, installation of a fuel station at the fleet base, data integration for fuel management systems, operational and safety training, and ongoing technical support. Alliance provides funding options so fleets can switch to autogas at no upfront cost.

Autogas fleets currently save around $1.50 per gallon compared to gasoline, and many report reduced maintenance needs and increased engine life. Propane autogas is 30 percent cleaner than gasoline, and 98 percent of the U.S. autogas supply is made in America. The most widely used alternative fuel in the world, autogas powers 18 million vehicles globally.

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From superiortelegram.com: “Crime scene investigation” – Dead bodies littered the Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College-Superior campus Thursday.

One had been bludgeoned to death with a dumbbell. Found wrapped in a tarp and dumped near the parking lot as a stabbing victim. A drug deal gone bad led to the shooting death of one male. A daycare accident led to the death of a 4-year-old. A body hung from a ceiling in a classroom.

Teams of law enforcement officers gathered around each crime scene wearing blue booties and carrying clipboards. They took photographs, notes, then tagged and bagged available evidence.

Corpse-riddled scenarios were the final step in a weeklong training course on crime scene processing offered by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

“It’s just not an evidence tech class, per se,” said Nick Stahlke, forensic science training coordinator for the state. Along with teaching the basics of collecting, preserving and submitting evidence, the class teaches officers how to determine what could be evidence at scenes to develop a strategy for collecting it.

“It’s not just the evidence handling part of it. It’s also identification of, collection of, processing of and then ultimately submitting to the crime lab,” Stahlke said.

The first three days of the week offered presentations by members of the crime lab. The law enforcement officers learned about DNA, latent print development, tire tracks, firearms, tool marks, questionable documents, trace evidence, drug identification and toxicology.

“It’s all helpful,” said Brad Wyss, a deputy with the Marinette County Sheriff’s Department.

Deputy Jason Janecek with the Ashland County Sheriff’s Department said the course covered the gamut from refresher items to advanced training on how to better collect minute or trace evidence. And it has definitely enhanced their photography skills.

“Probably the biggest thing we’ve learned is just the limitations to what the lab can do and what they need from us in the field,” Janecek said.

“It’s an eye-opener,” Wyss said.

The intent of the training is two-fold, according to Kevin Jones, director of the crime lab bureau for the Department of Law Enforcement Services. It increases the quality of evidence sent to the state’s three crime labs, and it keeps the experts at the lab instead of in the field collecting evidence.

“That’s the intent of the whole course is to keep people at the lab working case work,” Stahlke said. Currently, crimes against persons have a 45-day turnaround time at the state crime lab, Jones said.

In prior years, the state provided this type of training only twice a year, once at Fort McCoy and once in the Milwaukee area. This year, four courses were added including the first ever in northern Wisconsin. Response to the regional training has been overwhelming.

“There were more applicants than we had spots,” Jones said. Twenty-seven law enforcement officers from agencies throughout the area, including Ashland, Douglas, Manitowoc, Marinette and Washburn counties as well as Chetek, Crandon, Bad River, Clear Lake and Iron River, attended the weeklong training.

Increasing training sessions statewide has led to a drop in the number of calls for crime lab techs to process scenes, Jones said. However, the most helpful part of the training has been the connections forged between DOJ staff and law enforcement. They now have someone they can call for advice.

“We’ve been getting less calls for service and more calls for consultations,” Jones said. “When you’re out at a crime scene at 12:30 at night it’s just nice to know you can call somebody and get some advice.”

The scenarios Thursday were tailored to fit the available rooms at WITC while pulling from actual scenes the crime lab has processed, Stahlke said. Each included a dead dummy.

“Each one of these scenarios has a body as part of the scene,” Stahlke said. “I figure if they can process a homicide scene, they’re going to be able to process anything else.”

The training streamlines the evidence collection process and strikes a balance between efficiencies at the lab and out in the field, Jones said, for a “better product all around.”

He said he hopes to expand on the training by offering future classes in more advanced fields like blood spatter analysis and photography.

The training is free to law enforcement officers and each department receives a crime scene kit at the end of the class. The cost to put on the course, paid by the justice department, is about $10,000.

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From fox11online.com: “Landscape plans unveiled for Heritage Hill” – ALLOUEZ – New designs for parts of Heritage Hill were revealed Monday.

But they weren’t from a company. The plans were drawn up by area students.

The landscape design studio advanced class from Northeast Wisconsin Technical College provided the ideas.

The designs vary by section of the historical park, and use flowers to represent that particular time period.

The students offered their plans to Heritage Hill for free as part of their class project.

“It’s very important, it is kind of like giving back to the community, and it presented many challenges so it bettered myself and my classmates,” said NWTC student Kyle Kranzusch.

Heritage Hill officials say they hope to start work on some of the plans this year.

However, they say it’ll be several years before all of the renovations would be finished.

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From waow.com: “NTC goes green” – Northcentral Technical College is going green. Or, at least its farm is.

“Sometimes we want to be free of WPS power,” Director of Facilities Rob Elliot said.

That’s why NTC partnered with Warner Electric to install three wind turbines at their agricultural center. Combined with the already placed solar panels, during a sunny, windy day they are expected to carry the farm’s full electrical load.

“At peak demand we use about 38 kilowatts here at the farm, the wind turbines will produce about 27 kilowatts,” Elliot said.

The energy produced from the turbines will power lights, classrooms, and technology.

“There will be times we are pulling off the grid from WPS, buying power. But, there will be times we will be selling power back,” Elliot said.

But, it’s not just about saving energy. It is also a teaching tool.

“It gives students practical equipment to work with so they can tip them down, see the motor, the brakes and can learn the technology,” Elliot said.

Scott Story is a first year student. Even before the turbines were up and running, story and his class were on site, learning.

“Now-a-days were learning how to find ways to create energy with using gasses and stuff like that,” Story said.

But, not everyone is as excited. NTC officials say they did have one complaint. A nearby residence worried about how much noise the energy savers would make.

“These generate less noise than the ones you see on a farm on the highway. Actually, traffic going by will be louder than these turbines,” Elliot explained.

School officials say all three turbines will be producing energy by next week, making this farm a little greener.

View WAOW video

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From postcrescent.com: “Fire chief receives FVTC alumni award” —  GRAND CHUTE Town of Menasha Fire Chief Keith Kiesow has been named Fox Valley Technical College’s 2012 Outstanding Alumni Award winner.

Kiesow graduated from FVTC in 1977 with a technical diploma in auto mechanics. In 1995, he received an associate degree in fire protection from the school.

He is an adjunct instructor at FVTC and serves on the fire protection program’s advisory committee.

The annual award recognizes an FVTC graduate who has demonstrated the value of technical education through career advancement, community service, continued personal and educational growth, and support of the Wisconsin Technical College System.

Kiesow will receive his award Sunday at FVTC’s spring commencement ceremony at the Kolf Sports Center in Oshkosh.

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From fdlreporter.com: “Moraine Park’s Edwards-Patterson selected as NEH Summer Scholar” – Amy Edwards Patterson, a communication instructor at Moraine Park Technical College, has been selected as a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Scholar from a national applicant pool to attend one of six NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops.

NEH is a federal agency that each year supports summer study opportunities so that faculty can work in collaboration with experts in humanities disciplines.

“The NEH Landmarks workshop in Brooklyn will provide me with an excellent opportunity to explore digital pedagogy and place-based education,” said Patterson.

“Change and preservation, the major themes for the workshop, relate closely to the composition and communication fields, and I look forward to returning to Moraine Park with new ideas, assignments, and activities to share with my students.”

Patterson will participate in a workshop entitled “Along the Shore: Changing and Preserving the Landmarks of Brooklyn’s Industrial Waterfront.”

The one-week program will be held at the New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York and directed by Dr. Richard E. Hanley.

Faculty members selected to participate in the program each receive a $1,200 stipend for travel, study, and living expenses.

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From greenbaypressgazette.com: “College studies still fall along gender lines” – When Breana Cleven dons a cap and gown next week to accept a certificate in welding from Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, she’ll be part of a minority and majority.

Women have outnumbered men at local colleges for more than a generation, and their ranks are growing. But educators say certain areas of study continue to be dominated by women or men. Women, for example, slowly are gravitating to fields typically favored by men, including welding, science or engineering.

Cleven will be one of the 65 percent or so of female graduates, but just one of two women graduating with a welding certificate.

“I’ve always worked on farms and stuff so I’m used to working with men,” said Cleven, who graduated from high school in 2009 and lives in the Wrightstown area. “I got a job welding last summer and did a little bit of welding in high school. I decided to get a certificate and hopefully get a good job.”

When students at three local colleges — NWTC, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and St. Norbert College — graduate in the coming weeks, more women than men will accept diplomas.

For the past 20 years, women have made up about 60 percent of NWTC’s student population. They now make up about two-thirds of the student body, or 64 percent. Sixty-eight percent of University of Wisconsin-Green Bay graduates in 2011 were women and at St. Norbert College, almost 60 percent of the class of 2011 was female.

“I think the trend of more women in college than men has been going on for a while,” said Karen Smits, vice president for college advancement at NWTC who suggested that the long-term trends could be moving to better reflect the makeup of communities.

In the past 10 years, women nationwide have earned about 60 percent of bachelor’s degrees, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In the same period, the number of women earning master’s degrees has grown from 58 percent to 60 percent, and the number of female doctoral graduates has increased from 43 percent in 1998-99 to 52 percent in 2008-09, the most recent numbers available from the Virginia-based center.

Gender specific

Classes at NWTC in decades past were pretty starkly divided — photos from the 1930s show a science class full of men and a typing class filled mostly with women.

Those numbers are changing, but maybe not as fast as people would assume.

“You still see women moving into the health professions and men into manufacturing and construction programs,” Smits said. “We have seen some crossover, but maybe not as much as we would have hoped for.”

When nursing shortages made headlines in the mid-2000s, Smits said NWTC saw a jump in men signing up for its two-year registered nursing program. Still, just 127 men have graduated from the community college with an RN degree in the past 20 years, compared with 1,752 women.

Likewise, in a 20-year span, women accounted for 85 percent of the school’s accounting graduates and all of its administrative assistant, administrative professional, dental assistant and childcare graduates. They also accounted for nearly all the school’s dental hygienist and data entry operations graduates, as well as dominated health- and medical-related programs. Percentages of women are in the single digits for many electrical, automotive and engineering programs, but Smits said numbers of women in those areas are growing.

In the past 20 years, she noted that 96 percent of welding graduates were men. But there are some signs of growth — six women graduated with welding certificates two years ago.

“A lot of people think it’s only a man’s job, but women can do it, too,” Cleven said. “I think the guys are pretty good about it.”

Twenty years ago, 64 percent of UW-Green Bay graduates were women. In 2011 they made up 68 percent of graduates.

Since at least 1990, women have earned about 90 percent of education, social work and nursing degrees at the school. They’ve made up half the business graduates, as well as communications graduates, which includes computers and information sciences.

The number of women, as a percentage of all natural and applied sciences majors, which includes math, rose steadily through the 1990s before leveling off in the mid-2000s. Women represented just 46 percent of natural science, including math, majors from 1990-91 to 1994-95, and just 10 years later, they represented 65 percent of natural sciences, including math, majors. Today, women represent 60 percent of natural science majors.

St. Norbert does not break out the numbers similarly.

Smits of NWTC said administrators are trying to encourage crossover.

“What we’re trying to do is let both genders know there are great opportunities for both,” she said. “For women, we talk about some of the possibilities in manufacturing. For men, we talk about health care, noting it does involve science, you’re just working with people.”

She acknowledges change takes time.

“Children and high school kids are influenced by their parents, or what their guidance counselors talk to them about,” Smits said. “It’s a long, slow process.

“But I do think after 15 years of flat, we’re starting to see an uptick of change. We’re hosting workshops to help kids see different career opportunities, and I think high schools and middle schools are making an effort to show those possibilities, too.”

Equal pay?

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women with associate degrees earn about 75 percent of what men with two-year degrees earn. That could be because jobs traditionally held by men, such as engineering and mechanics, often pay more than jobs traditionally held by women.

The research institute also found that men earn more than women in most fields that require a two-year degree or certificate. The median salary for a female childcare worker, for example, in 2010 was $18,336, compared with $23,716 for men. It noted female elementary and middle school teachers earn about 91 percent of their male counterparts, and females in health-related occupations, such as nurses or home health aides, earn about 88 percent of men in this jobs, despite making up about 80 percent of workers in those fields.

Smits said wages are good in both traditionally male or female occupations, depending on the field. NWTC surveys students six months after graduation who are working in their chosen profession.

The most recent survey found that dental assistants, who are almost always female, earned an average of about $26,000 in 2011.

Those working in the diagnostic medical sonography field, which also is dominated by women, made about $61,000 that year. Nurses made about $47,000, and administrative professionals started at $27,000 a year.

Those graduating from the electrical mechanical engineering program, a traditionally male field, made an average $57,600, she said.

“I think both men and women can earn good salaries and we encourage them to think of it as the start of their career, rather than as a job,” she said.

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From cabinetmakerfdm.com: “Madison Area Technical College expands student fabrication lab” – After years of planning, Madison Area Technical College of Madison, Wis., began construction on a 3,000-square-foot addition to its lab.

The new addition will house the college’s rough mill, including its Kentwood moulder, a tool room with a new profile knife grinder and additional fabrication space. The news addition will also have wall-to-ceiling racks that will allow for stock to be stored at ground level, so students no longer need to haul materials up and down stairs. The existing dust collection system will also be replaced.

During a second construction phase, an additional 2,000 square feet will be created through remodeling. Plans for the remodel include an expanded finish room, a new assembly room, maintenance room, a clean veneering space and a climate-controlled room for veneer storage, a materials library and a new classroom for large seminars.

The first phase of the construction and addition project will be complete in August, while the second phase will take place during the 2012-13 school year, to be ready by fall 2013. For further information, contact Patrick Molzahn at pmolzahn@madisoncollege.org, call 608.246.6842, or visit www.matcmadison.edu.

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From wrn.com: “Uptick in starting salary of tech college grads” – A new report shows new technical college graduates are making more money than their counterparts the prior year. The Wisconsin Technical College System’s annual follow up survey shows median salary for all graduates starting their careers is $31,822 ($31,198 the year prior) with those earning associate degrees receiving a median salary of $36,033 ($35,616 for 2010 grads).

System President Dan Clancy says their research also shows 88 percent are working within six months of graduation. Most of them–71 percent–work directly in their field of study. Clancy says these figures are about the same as last year, a positive sign given a down economy.

Clancy credits advisory committees, made up from people in the industry, that help guide students while in their programs.

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From business.waukesha.org: “Solving the Workforce Paradox: Wisconsin Technical Colleges Host Listening Sessions” – Wisconsin’s 16 technical colleges will host listening sessions to discuss Wisconsin’s workforce paradox – high unemployment, but employers (especially manufacturers) having a difficult time finding qualified workers.  WMC Foundation President Jim Morgan will discuss what he recently learned from over 50 listening sessions with more than 300 manufacturing representatives.  He will also share what WMC plans to do as the state’s manufacturers’ association and state chamber of commerce to solve the workforce shortage, including collecting best practices, launching a public awareness campaign, and assisting community and regional initiatives.

In addition to Jim’s presentation and discussion, each of the colleges will share their response to the issue.  The sessions will be 90 minutes and held on campus.  Please see the following schedule for a list of dates, times and locations.  Reservations are required, however, there is no charge to attend a session.

Please contact individual colleges for more detailed information about the program, or to reserve your seat at a listening session.

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From wiscnews.com: “SUGAR RUSH: A Portage resident is a finalist for the American Culinary Federation’s Pastry Chef of the Year” – The cake came out of the oven with an obvious problem.

A crater had formed along the moon-like surface, putting a large dent in the masterpiece.

So like any young chef, Julia Julian fixed the problem with a ton of frosting to even out the top — creating a lake of sugary sweetness.

“There was nothing wrong with the flavor,” her mother Jackie said. “We would eat anything that was made.”

Julian was only 7 when she made her mom the birthday cake. But cooking wasn’t a passion yet.

“She was more into (raising) golden retrievers than cooking,” Jackie said.

But in a home where everything was made from scratch, the environment to learn about cooking and baking was ideal.

Almost two decades later, Julian is one of four chefs competing for the American Culinary Federation’s National Pastry Chef of the Year.

The Portage resident, who teaches at Madison College, won a regional competition April 14 in Detroit, creating a golden pineapple rum cake with passion fruit and mango sherbet.

“I didn’t expect to win. I wanted to go and experience what it would be like,” she said while taking a break from the college kitchens.

From her beginnings as a student at the college, Julian has made everything from a simple chocolate chip cookie to a 3-foot chocolate skyscraper.

But at nationals, competitors often focus on sugar work — blown sugar that becomes sweet art with a theme.

“The skill level can be very even, but (a contest) all comes down to who has the better game,” she said.

While she can create the type of desserts you see in pictures or on carts in fine restaurants, Julian still has simple sugar cravings like the rest of us.

“I tell my students, ‘I’m a baking instructor now, but I still eat a gas station doughnut,’” she said. “You’re not going to be blacklisted for stopping.”

The baker

Once a month during home schooling, Julian’s mother would pick a day for her kids to make something in the kitchen.

Home economics led to showing at the Columbia County Fair through 4-H.

But when Julian decided to go to college to study culinary arts, the idea was a bit of a surprise to her family. They knew, however, she always gives everything she has to succeed.

Julian picked a $40,000 a year school in Chicago and was accepted, paying the enrollment fees in advance.

But the realization of going to the school soon clicked.

“You can graduate with the fancy degree, but the reality of it, which most people don’t realize … you’ll be a line cook or a pastry chef for about nine or 10 dollars and hour, if you’re lucky,” the 25-year-old said.

So Julian decided to look closer to home.

“After meeting with instructors (at Madison College), that really changed my mind,” she said. “And I’m glad I went here.”

Julian wanted to be a chef who focused on elegant dishes, but a two-year wait list in the culinary program delayed that plan. She found herself on the baking side for the first year — eventually completing the culinary side, as well.

A quiet student early on in the program, Julian said she was never the one to be first to present in class.

“When I first had interest in the culinary program, or even the baking program, I wasn’t the one who said, ‘I’m going to be a line cook. I’m going to make this a career.’ I just loved baking and I loved cooking.”

Gaining experience through college and jobs at Krista’s Kitchen in Portage and a restaurant in the Dells, Julian graduated and found work at a country club in Illinois.

“I got a lot of experience, but it wasn’t quite my cup of tea,” she said. “And I was a little homesick.”

She found her way back to Madison College, finding a job in the cafeteria, which she said they jokingly refer to as No. 10 can land. But, she says, a lot of food is made from scratch.

Julian was offered a job as a culinary tutor for the school, and last fall she began teaching baking classes and theory.

Now she helps students find their way.

“Some people come in and have the passion for it and they kind of have shell shock when it’s not like cooking at home,” she said. “Because it’s not.”

Fast and furious

The first time she entered a cooking contest was four years ago as part of a college team.

“We came in last,” Julian said. “We didn’t even know how bad we were. I think everyone just congratulated us for showing up.”

Recently, however, the team took home a silver in the ACF’s hot food competition.

“It’s something that pushes me to keep learning,” Julian said. “It gets me out to see what other chefs are doing.”

Julian said she was happy just to be selected to the April regional pastry competition, which has a tough application process.

Everyone was given the same ingredients and knew that going in.

There was about an hour to plate four samples and 10 minutes to present to the judges.

“I probably practiced my dessert, completed how I was going to do it, about 10 times.”

“She always … goes above and beyond in what she does. She never just practices enough just to get by,” Jackie said.

But the national competition may be somewhat blind, with chefs not knowing the ingredients.

“I’m kind of scared spitless right now,” Julian joked.

Last year in the pastry competition, there was a plated dessert, a show piece with a fantasy theme, and a small petit four dessert.

“I’ve been thinking about all three of these things but not making anything too concrete.”

Julian said if she goes on to win the national competition in Florida, the honor would mean a lot to her, but the win would also be good for Madison College, which has never had a student or teacher win the award.

“We’ve been competing at this level for four years now,” said Paul Short, culinary program director for Madison College. “We entered this level of competition because we thought it would help our program get recognition for students who want to come here, but also companies pay attention to this kind of stuff.”

The program recently got another boost with the approval of an $8 million project to build a new home for the culinary school.

The three-story building on West Johnson Street and Wisconsin Avenue will house a dining room, demonstration kitchen and a retail bakery.

While she works part-time at the college, Julian also works for Sub-Zero and Wolf Appliances in Madison as a pastry chef.

“Now I make desserts for all the sales reps who come in,” she said.

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From witc.edu: “WITC-Ahsland BPA students compete nationally” – Three students from the Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College Ashland chapter of Business Professionals of America recently competed at the national conference held in Chicago April 25-29.

Sheila Wilcox, Angela Kerfoot and Kaci Peterson joined 5,000 BPA members to compete in a variety of competitions to test their business skills.

Wilcox placed seventh in interview skills, and Peterson placed fourth in administrative support concepts, sixth in  basic office systems and procedures and sixth in fundamental word processing skills.

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From newrichmond-news.com: ” Wind farm event brings together backers, opponents” – The stage was set for a serious confrontation as officials with the Highland Wind Farm hosted an open house Wednesday, April 25.

The gathering, conducted at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College in New Richmond, was designed to answer questions that area residents had about the project that would bring 41 turbines to the Town of Forest and an electrical substation to the Town of Cylon if approved by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.

Opponents of the project gathered in the college’s parking lot as the open house began. Many of them wore “Stop the Turbines” shirts and several signs were posted to display their displeasure with the industrial wind farm idea.

John Strom, a spokesman for the opponents, said the group would eventually be well represented inside.

“We’ll attempt to get some questions answered,” he said, claiming that Highland officials have avoided answering many questions up until now.

He also charged that when developers do provide answers to people’s questions, the landowners are peppered with partial truths and incomplete information.

Strom and others continue to claim that the Highland project doesn’t belong in the Town of Forest because turbines have been shown to have an impact on the health of those living nearby. Homeowners are also concerned that their property values will decline if the turbines are eventually installed.

Strom said such wind farms belong in places where homes are not close by, but Forest is too heavily populated to comfortably host such a project. At the most, Strom said, the township could safely site between 18 or 19 turbines, not 41.

As the PSC process moves toward possible approval by this fall, Strom said the citizen’s group will continue to do all it can to stop the turbines from being installed locally.

“The best we can do is educate people and raise awareness,” he said. “It’s not that we’re anti-wind, we just want responsible siting.”

When the group went inside WITC to participate in the gathering, there were a few terse words exchanged between supporters and opponents of the project, but overall the open house was orderly and cordial.

Jay Mundinger, founding principal of the Highland Wind Farm project, said he was happy both backers and those opposed to the plans were represented.

“We were very, very pleased,” he said. “I think we were able to set the record straight on a few things. There’s been some misinformation out there.”

Mundinger said he recognizes that strong feelings remain on both sides of the issue, but Highland officials are committed to working with everyone and answering questions and concerns.

“We’re willing to continue listening,” he said. “I don’t think we’re shutting the door on anyone.”

Highland contends that current research shows no correlation between turbine operations and the health of individuals nearby. They also claim that a wind farm will not negatively impact property values in the area.

According to a timeline posted at the open house, the PSC will likely conduct two public meetings in July or August to gather comments about the Highland project. One meeting will likely be held in Madison while a second will be offered in the St. Croix County area.

If the project continues to move forward, Highland officials expect final state approval to occur by Sept. 25. If that happens, turbine construction could begin before the end of 2012.

The proposed wind farm project includes the following details: 26,550 acre project boundary; 41 turbine sites with 11 additional alternative locations; an estimated 100-member construction work force; an estimated six to eight permanent employees for wind farm operations.

If constructed, the project would connect to Xcel Energy’s 161-kilovolt transmission line near the Forest-Cylon town line.

The Highland Wind Farm would produce enough renewable wind energy to power more than 30,000 homes.

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From bizjournals.com: “Wisconsin technical college grads landing jobs” – Despite Wisconsin’s current economic challenges, a survey of 2011 technical college graduates revealed 88 percent of graduates were employed within six months of graduation.

The majority of respondents to the survey, 86 percent, also said they are working in Wisconsin, and 71 percent are employed directly in their field of study.

“This is a bright spot in Wisconsin’s economy,” said Dan Clancy, president of the Wisconsin Technical College System. “Our graduates are employed within Wisconsin’s borders and are contributing to the economic recovery in our state. The results show that the curriculum aligns with industry skill needs and that employers value our graduates’ abilities.”

The survey was part of the annual Graduate Follow-up Report by the Wisconsin Technical College System.

The median salary for all new graduates is $31,822 with those earning associate degrees receiving a median salary of $36,033.

The fields with the highest median starting salaries are utilities engineering technology, technical studies-journey worker, fire science, biomedical electronics, automated manufacturing systems technician and applied instrumentation and process control automation.

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From wsau.com: “MSTC celebrates nursing milestone” – WISCONSIN RAPIDS – A nursing program that has trained the people who may take your vital signs or draw your blood when you go to the doctor’s office is celebrating 1,000 graduates.

The program at Mid-State Technical College began as a partnership with Waukesha County Technical College for the first two years. Mid-State enrolled its first students in 1991. The program saw its biggest growth between 2001 and 2005.

“It’s a milestone not only for the students, the faculty, but it’s also for our whole community,” said associate nursing dean Mary Moss.

The school will hold a public celebration from 4 to 7 p.m. in the A building on the Wisconsin Rapids campus. There will be brief presentation at 5:30 p.m. Nursing students and faculty will show off a simulated mannequin they train on and other equipment they use in the progrm.

“Our graduates of this program have directly impacted health care here in central Wisconsin,” said faculty member Linda Olsen.

More than 90 percent of the nursing graduates work within 60 miles of the Mid-State district.

The school’s student nurses association is asking you to bring a can of food to the celebration. All donations will be given to a local food pantry.

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From host.madison.com: “A room of her own: Where are the female executive chefs? – In mid-March, Francesca Hong joined a tiny, elite group in Madison.

At 23, she became the executive chef at 43 North, one of the only women in the city to hold such a top position and the only female to oversee an upscale kitchen downtown.

43 North, 108 King St., is a contemporary American bistro and part of the Restaurant Muramoto/Sushi Muramoto restaurant group. Hong has been a member of the kitchen team since the eatery opened in October 2010.

“You do have to fight to prove yourself a little bit more,” Hong said. “Even though I hate looking at it that way. I hate to think it’s harder for us, but I think in the end it’s true.”

Women bring something different to the business — a tendency to see their restaurant as an extension of themselves and their community, a strong belief in connections to local farmers, and a focus on caring for people. They can mentor young women coming into a male-dominated field, and they’re more likely to foster collaboration rather than a traditional kitchen hierarchy.

Despite a 50 percent increase in the number of female-owned restaurants in the decade between 1997 and 2007, as reported by the National Restaurant Association, women who run kitchens are still a stark minority, not even tracked by the trade association.

“When you find out why (women are) not being hired as executive chefs, please let me know,” said Paul Short, who runs the culinary arts program at Madison College (MATC).

About half of the graduates from MATC’s two-year culinary program are women, Short said, with “great skills.” They go into wine distribution and catering, become personal chefs, deli managers and cheesemakers.

“Why they’re not running top places, I’m not sure,” he said. “The talent I see is incredible.”

A main reason may be that families and a restaurant schedule don’t mix well.

While women are increasingly the primary or co-earner for their families, they’re also still the primary caregivers for children — in 2011, the census reported that nearly one in four married women with children younger than 15 stay at home with them.

“Restaurant work is so incredibly demanding,” Hong said. “I’ve already made some sacrifices … I want to balance career and family, and I think in the restaurant world it’s getting more and more difficult to do that.”

And the accolades tend to go to men. One of the highest culinary awards for chefs is given by the James Beard Foundation. Of 51 finalists this year, only seven are female.

The woman in the toque

Currently, Madison has just a handful of female executive chefs. For two years, Cory Richardson has been executive chef at Bishops Bay Country Club. Susan Hendrix co-owns and runs the kitchen at Sunprint Cafe, a breakfast and lunch place on the Capitol Square.

Melissa Strahota, a graduate of MATC’s culinary program, has been executive chef at The Fountain on State Street for three months.

The staff is small and money is tight, so she’s also a “line cook, a prep cook, a menu planner … I do ordering, I put everything away.”

“A lot of the women I have seen don’t get a foothold in kitchens because they don’t feel confident enough,” Strahota said. “It’s hard for restaurant owners to take it seriously … it’s accepted that men are the chefs.”

More common are women who work in pastry, like Elizabeth Dahl at Nostrano and Megan Belle at Harvest. Baking and dessert-making, fields more precise than working a line, are dominated by women.

“When I went into this I didn’t think about how unbalanced it would be,” said Belle, whose husband, Ian Stowell, is also a chef at Harvest. “It was how I got my foot in the door, and I ended up liking what I was doing.”

Tami Lax opened Harvest in 2000 after spending five and a half years (several as chef de cuisine) working for Odessa Piper at L’Etoile. There, Lax developed relationships with the restaurant’s purveyors, spending her day off harvesting with local farmers.

“It was work going to those farms and picking apples for 12 hours,” she said. “But you get done with the day and you’re like, this was awesome, the fresh air and birds and the smell of apples staining into your hands.

“That connection you make — for me, there’s not a better high.”

Women in the restaurant business are widely held to be less likely than their male counterparts to have their name on the door, and more interested in creating a symbiotic relationship between the front and the back of the house.

“I never know what’s gender and what’s personality,” said Nancy Christy, who owned Wilson Street Grill with Andrea Craig in downtown Madison for 14 years (1987-2001). “We had a desire to create an environment where we were mentoring our staff as well as leading and managing them.

“We had these beliefs about how you can create community, diversity in the work force.”

Christy recalled interns from culinary school telling stories about kitchens where, when a young cook turned her back, a chef would turn up the heat on her pots. It was a way of “keeping everybody on their toes,” Christy said.

“Is that how you want to learn cooking? Is that the environment you want?” she said. “Not me. … when I worked for Madame (Liane) Kuony, I quit when she pulled somebody’s hair.”

In a 2010 study, “Not One of the Guys: Women Chefs Redefining Gender in the Culinary Industry,” authors Deborah A. Harris and Patti Giuffre outlined still-held assumptions about women in professional kitchens.

“Common stereotypes are that women are not good leaders, are too emotional, and that they are not ‘cut out’ for male-dominated work,” the study says.

Respondents to the study — women with varying levels of professional experience — also posited that male chefs “were guided by the need to impress others while women were more driven by a need to please others.”

Piper told an interviewer in 1996, after 20 years at L’Etoile, that she tried to cultivate a “clean, beautiful, creativity-affirming workplace.”

Now, she thinks the number of women in kitchens naturally “ebbs and flows,” and that the gender of the person in charge is less relevant than the personality.

“I could be pretty tough when I wanted to be,” Piper said. “Women can be as macho as the best of them and men can be … collaborative or nurturing. It’s no longer the case that a certain type of behavior is owned by one gender or the other.

“Some of the most nurturing chefs I’ve ever worked with were men, who wouldn’t bully weakness or vulnerability. They see strong skills that needed to be coaxed out and given a creative, supportive environment.”

Others find that women tend to fare better with the shifting challenges at a restaurant. Jennie Capellaro, owner of the vegetarian Green Owl on the near east side, said two of her longtime “key people” are single mothers.

“There’s something about knowing how to feed people and provide for people,” said Capellaro. “It’s hard to explain … a calmer demeanor, being able to roll with things. Because they have to deal with a lot as moms, too, I think.”

At Harvest, Lax agreed.

“I always loved working with women in a kitchen,” Lax said. “It’s definitely a different energy than when you have a full male kitchen. A female kind of brings stability to the ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ syndrome that goes on.”

Simply seeing a female in the executive chef position can be encouraging for young women coming into the field. Strahota, who spent time at Angelo’s and Rosario’s in Monona, the Green Lantern in McFarland, and Sushi Muramoto, has only ever worked under male executive chefs. Hong said the same.

“I worshipped the cooks that were above me,” said Hong, who is still the only woman in her kitchen. “It’s strange to think of myself heading a kitchen now.”

Hong’s mentor and employer, chef/owner Shinji Muramoto, says Hong is one of only a few female chefs he’s employed. “We’ve never had many women chefs … you need to be strong, and there are long hours.

“Francesca, she really cares about the details of food. That’s a women thing, compared to men. She cares about the small details. I’m really glad to have Francesca as an executive chef. She’s very motivated and she cares about detail. So far she’s doing great.”

Christy says more young women are going into the field and they contact her regularly.

“What I would say is that traditionally there was a hierarchal (structure) in the kitchen, and women — we’re talking in stereotypes now — are less inclined to that environment and have branched out to find other vehicles for their craft and their art,” she said.

Home cooking

In her 2011 memoir “Blood, Bones and Butter,” Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef and owner at Prune in New York, recounted the “ongoing struggle to be female in a professional kitchen.”

“My entire work life, I had been working a double shift,” Hamilton wrote. “Constantly, vigilantly figuring out and calibrating my place in that kitchen with those guys to make a space for myself that was bearable and viable.

“Should I wear pink clogs or black steel-toe work shoes? Lipstick or Chapstick? … Swear like a line cook or giggle like a girl?”

As memorialized in Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential,” the back of the house is notorious for being a macho place where the cooks crack sex jokes while slaving away in 95-degree heat.

Time is tight and the stakes are high — make a customer wait too long for his food, overcook the chicken or under-season the soup, and that diner may never come back.

“It’s not a pretty job,” said Hendrix at Sunprint. “It’s not for a girly girl at all. … There are days when I wake up and think ‘What am I doing, I’m insane.’ Other days I think this is the best thing we could have ever done.”

Muramoto describes the rigors of the job: “For you to be a line cook, you’ve got to deal with flames and knives. Once you take a look at Francesca’s arms, you can tell. She has lots of scars from burning herself and cutting herself.

“That’s one thing that keeps them away — women don’t want to have the scars on their arms. Most men don’t care. They’re more proud of it.”

Madison’s female chefs and restaurateurs don’t talk about discrimination when they discuss the career that “chose them.” But many have swapped the idea of having a child for having a place where the food and atmosphere is an extension of themselves.

“If you want to own a restaurant and run a kitchen and also have a family, one of them will suffer,” said Hendrix, who has two cats but no children. “I don’t believe you can do both at the same time … unless you have a great husband who is going to be a house husband to help take care of the kids and raise them and do the things moms do.

“The demands of a restaurant are so varied and so diverse and constant, it’s like having a family.”

Piper, 63, spent her childbearing years “raising” L’Etoile. When she was chef de cuisine there, Lax felt similarly maternal.

“You get there at 9:30 in the morning, like your child is waking up, and you’re there until you tuck it into bed at night,” Lax said. “There’s no break. There’s no calling in sick.”

But the pressures of owning and running a restaurant can take a major toll. Biggie Lemke owns the Naked Elm in Blue Mounds with her former partner, Matt Heindl. The two have a daughter, 3-year-old Evelyn, and live in an apartment above the bakery/café.

“If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn’t do it,” Lemke, 32, said. “It’s been really hard. I would’ve waited until Evelyn was in school full time.”

To turn out pizza, bagels and pastry to meet demand, Lemke has been working a high-intensity schedule. It doesn’t always seem worth it.

“As a full-time working mother, there are times when all I want to do is spend time with my baby,” Lemke said. “You want to be there when they’re throwing up, but you can’t call in sick.

“It’s really hard for a man to see what it’s like,” she added. “It’s just different.”

Evelyn’s 3rd birthday fell on a recent Saturday and Lemke had to work all day.

“At some point in the middle of the day, I was like, this is (expletive) stupid,” she said. “It’s my daughter’s 3rd birthday, I’m baking for the rest of the world and I don’t have time to bake her cupcakes.”

Lemke was quick to add that she loves the work, and she’ll likely continue to bake for the rest of her life. But for now, the Naked Elm is caught in a lease dispute with her ex-boyfriend’s parents and Lemke is convinced the environment is bad for her daughter.

“I had people tell me this is going to be the hardest thing you ever do in your life,” Lemke said. “And I thought, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ Literally I was starry eyed — those things aren’t going to happen to me.

“And then they did.”

The next big names

Like many formerly male-dominated careers, the culinary field seems to be moving, slowly, toward greater parity between men and women holding primary responsibility in the kitchen.

At 43 North, Hong still has ideals about balancing work and family. Her fiancé, Matt Morris, is a chef at Restaurant Muramoto, and so well understands the demands of their career.

“I would love to see more women in the kitchen, without having to feel like you have to be super badass or have a thick skin to keep up with the machismo that goes on kitchens sometimes,” she said.

“I don’t think a lot of Madison kitchens are like that. I don’t know if some people are apprehensive to start because they fear what they might’ve seen on TV.”

That’s not the case for 19-year-old Marissa Bertram. About to graduate with a culinary degree from Madison College, Bertram recently won the Central Region Student Chef of the Year Award at an American Culinary Foundation competition.

“I would like to own my own restaurant, or maybe a few restaurants, someday,” said Bertram, who will follow up her degree with a year in restaurant management. She wants to travel to Europe and stage (intern) in high-end kitchens. Thomas Keller, chef/owner of The French Laundry in Napa Valley, is an inspiration.

“It would be hard to have a lot of kids and travel places. But I guess I just — I try not to let things like that stop me,” she said. “I guess I’ll figure that out when I get there.”

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From host.madison.com: “Disc golf product Bushwhack Apps wins top prize at Startup Weekend” – Bushwhack Apps, a proposed digital product to help disc golfers navigate poorly marked paths, won the first-place prize at Startup Weekend Madison, an entrepreneurial gathering Friday through Sunday.

PACMapper, a tool that would let nursing homes, home health agencies and hospice services better assess geographic market viability, won second prize.

Seatswapr.com, or sit4sat.com, which would allow airline passengers to pay each other to swap seats, won third prize.

The event, at Madison Area Technical College’s west campus, drew more than 100 people who pitched 61 new business ideas, then worked on developing 15 of them.

It was the first event of its kind in Wisconsin. Startup Weekends have been held around the U.S. and worldwide.

For Startup Weekend Madison, leaders from UW-Madison, Madison Area Technical College, Edgewood College, Capital Entrepreneurs and Sector67 organized the event.

Startup Weekend is part of Capital Entrepreneurs Week in Madison.

A program similar to Startup Weekend, 3 Day Startup Madison, will be held this coming weekend, May 4-6, and is aimed at commercializing technology by UW-Madison students.

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From waow.com: “SP agrees on deal to move forward with mall plans” – On Monday morning, Stevens Point leaders made a deal to move forward with plans for the Centerpoint mall.

The mall has been a work in progress for years. In 2010, Stevens Point leaders announced plans to redevelop the increasingly empty building and move Mid-state Technical College inside. But city leaders realized the process could take longer than expected.

“Sometimes you have to check your ego at the door and understand you need to make decisions that really take the community as a whole to heart,” said Stevens Point mayor Andrew Halverson.

Plans for the mall had to be put on hold after a legal battle broke out between the city of Stevens Point and the mall’s former owner, Valley Bank. But on Monday morning, the two sides came to an agreement. Valley Bank senior vice president Steve Janney calls it a compromise.

“It gave the bank the ability to recapitalize itself in the amount of $1,925,000 that we can now reinvest and actually start making money on,” said Janney. “Mutually I think it was a great decision.”

For the price tag of $1,925,000, Stevens Point city leaders don’t have to worry about legal action the bank had taken against them and Valley Bank can’t sue them in the future. Even though it’s a bit more expensive than Mayor Halverson anticipated, he said it’s worth it.

“For the first time ever, we know exactly what will happen, which is Mid-State will be able to build in downtown and Third Street will move forward,” said Halverson.

“It’s been a very trying situation but it all ended in a way that we can all be happy so we wish everyone there well,” said Janney.

Representatives from both sides say there are no hard feelings and they’re happy to move forward.

The Mid-State Technical College dean said he hopes to start classes in the downtown building by May of 2013.

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From biztimes.com: “Super Steel trains new welders” – Milwaukee manufacturer Super Steel LLC has recruited and trained its first class of new employees through a partnership with Milwaukee Area Technical College and Wauwatosa staffing firm Aerotek.

The program aims to hire and train 45 new welders over nine weeks. Aerotek recruits the candidates with the right skill sets and MATC provides the training facilities. Bill Peterson, trainer and weld engineer at Super Steel, runs a one-week intensive course at MATC to get the candidates to entry level.

Since Super Steel engineers, fabricates, assembles and paints large metal structures like trains, construction equipment and agricultural machines, it can be difficult to find employees who have the right experience, he said.

“To be a candidate for this program, you have to have gone through some schooling,” Peterson said. “These people are past the point where they know they want to be welders.”

Joe Rouse, plant manager, said heightened demand for agriculture and locomotive equipment has kept Super Steel busy and hiring for the last two years.

They haven’t been able to hire enough welders to catch up with the order backlog, Rouse said. Super Steel has experienced 50 percent sales growth in the last two years.
“We have so much volume,” he said. “We’re in serious growth mode.”

Last year, Peterson tested and trained more than 200 welders. The company now has about 400 employees.

The company hopes the training program can help get welders to the needed entry level certification, AWSD 1.1, 1.3, and hit the ground running to fill orders.

“When they get through with the training program at MATC, they are going to be able to walk into our facility and start welding,” Peterson said.

New Super Steel welders who started last week said the program gave them the leg up they needed to get the job.

“It was a learning experience to work with (Peterson) because most of us have a little bit of the welding experience” but needed to learn more, said new welder Anthony Mendoza-Perry.

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From marshfieldnewsherald.com: “MSTC creates new mobile app development program” —  Software developers in central Wisconsin soon will be able to learn how to create mobile apps, thanks to a new program through Mid-State Technical College.

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From witc.edu: “WITC students to volunteer in Guatemala” – In one of the poorest districts in Guatemala, there is a small school of about 70 elementary, middle and high school students. Of the 15 computers the school owns, only 10 are operable, but five technical college students are hoping to make a difference.

As part of Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College’s first international service learning project, five informational technology-network specialist students and two staff members will travel to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, where they will repair and configure the school’s computers, configure donated laptops and teach computer and software skills to the students and staff. The project is in cooperation with IRFE Volunteers Abroad, and the group has received two grants to help fund the project.

“I’ve always been interested in service learning, and I even considered going on missionary trips with my church,” said Pat McCullough, project coordinator and WITC-Ashland network technician. “I was very pleased to be able to find a project where students could use the skills and knowledge that they learned at WITC.”

The group will leave the day after graduation, May 12, and will remain in Guatemala until May 21. That gives the students just weeks to raise additional funds, collect donations for the school and brush up on their Spanish language skills. They also need to build a curriculum of sorts.

“I’ve been practicing with all the Word applications – it’s very interesting that that’s what they (the school) seemed most interested, including photo applications like PhotoShop,” said WITC’s Dan Schmidt, New Richmond, in anticipation of the service trip to Guatemala. “I’ve also done some research on the culture and country to familiarize myself. I enjoy international travel and look at this as a leadership opportunity and a way to gain experience in the field. I’m looking forward to teaching, as I may pursue that as a career.”

Brian Carlson, Carl Haughn, Jacob Koval and Dan Nourse, IT students from the Ashland Campus, will join Schmidt, McCullough and WITC-Ashland instructor, Paul Gordon.

WITC introduced the international service learning initiative this year, allowing staff to compete for a grant to help fund a project that complements student learning abroad.

“This represents a new direction for us,” says Lenore Knock, dean of students at WITC-New Richmond. “Now we’re starting to share our students’ learning and skills with countries that don’t have access to the level of higher education we have in the US. Plus we can make a sustainable difference because we’re teaching and not just fixing. In addition because of our students’ ongoing commitment to service, WITC Student Senate district-wide has voted to support this initiative both financially and with materials and tools.”

“Some of the students from our area have not had the opportunity to travel,” McCullough said. “This will expose students to a different culture and lifestyle. And it might just cause us to look at things differently, make us more aware of people who don’t have all the benefits we have in the United States.”

The students are accepting donations of cash and school supplies. WITC has donated 12 used and reconfigured laptops to the school. Individuals wishing to donate should contact McCullough at 715.682.4591, ext. 3203.

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From wicap.us: “Blackhawk Tech’s Aircraft Maintenance Technician Program receives Civil Air Patrol Awards” – At the Wisconsin Wing Civil Air Patrol’s annual Wing Conference in Waukesha, Blackhawk Technical College’s revered Aviation Maintenance Technician Program was recognized for its significant, long-term contributions to the aerospace field with the prestigious Frank G. Brewer – Civil Air Patrol Memorial Aerospace Award by the Wisconsin Wing and the Great Lakes Region of the Civil Air Patrol.

Patrick Ripp, one of Blackhawk’s three instructors, accepted the awards from Major General Charles L. Carr, Jr., Civil Air Patrol National Commander, Colonel Robert Karton, Great Lakes Region Commander, and Colonel Clarence Peters, Commander, Wisconsin Wing.

As a result of these awards, Blackhawk’s AMT program is under consideration by the Civil Air Patrol’s National Aerospace Education Review Committee, which includes members of the Brewer family, for the National Award.   Civil Air Patrol consists of six wings in the Great Lakes Region, with a total of 52 wings comprising the eight regions of the national organization.

The Brewer award is presented by CAP in commemoration of Frank G. Brewer, Sr., and his lifelong interest in aviation, youth and education to individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to the aerospace field over a continuous period.  Blackhawk Tech’s AMT program has been operational for more than 70 years and certificated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) since 1949.  Current instructor Rick Theis has been at Blackhawk for 20 years, Pat Ripp for 15, and Mario Flores for 12 years.

Two graduates, including Archie Henklemann and Richard Wixom, have been inducted into the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame.  Visitors to the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh see the ‘Wright Flyer’ replica on display.  This replica was built by Blackhawk students under the direction of then Blackhawk AMT chief instructor, Archie Henklemann of Janesville.

Other graduates have gone on to become engineers, pilots, or managers/directors of maintenance at EAA, Air Tran, Midwest Express, and US Airways; work at NASA and the Smithsonian; own and operate aviation and aviation maintenance companies, and become restoration specialties for the EAA, Blackhawk airways, and Tab-Air.

The citation which accompanied Blackhawk’s nomination for the Brewer Award read in part, “Blackhawk Technical College’s Airframes and Power Plants Mechanics program has made and continues to make significant contributions to the aerospace field by providing invaluable aerospace education to the State of Wisconsin and the nation.”

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From newrichmond-news.com: “WITC set to add new programs” – With the addition of health information technology and medical office specialist, Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College continues its commitment to providing career-focused training.

Employment opportunities in the health care industry are projected to grow faster than average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That remains true despite the sluggish economy and job losses in other sectors. As a result, WITC will begin offering health information technology (HIT) at each of its four campuses.

“People who prefer to be ‘behind the scenes’ will be more interested in the health information technology program,” said Kate Siegler, dean of allied health. “They will be able to code records for reimbursement, research and statistics and gather health information for multiple purposes. This is a growing career with a wide variety of opportunities.”

Career paths for graduates of this associate degree include work as a health information technician, reimbursement coordinator, privacy and/or security officer, and data quality and integrity monitor.

A medical coding specialist diploma will be embedded into the HIT program. This will allow students to earn a diploma after one year and enter the workforce while they continue the final year of the program to earn the associate degree. The program is also ideal for those currently working in medical and clinical offices who would like to advance in the field.

A new Medical Office Specialist program will also be offered at all the WITC campuses as well. This technical diploma combines medical office skills with computer skills to prepare graduates of the program for employment on the administrative side of health care working in physician’s offices, clinics, hospitals, nursing homes and other health organizations.

“This program is a good option for people who are looking at the medical field, but want to work in an office or customer service capacity rather than in a lab,” says Leslie Bleskachek WITC academic dean, business division.

Graduates of this program can grow their technical diploma into the medical administrative specialist associate degree offered through WITC’s New Richmond and Rice Lake campuses. The medical office specialist technical diploma combines medical office skills with computer skills to prepare graduates for employment on the administrative side of health care working in physician’s offices, clinics, hospitals, nursing homes and other health organizations.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment related to this field is expected to increase by 11 percent through 2018.

For more in-depth information, contact a WITC Admissions Advisor or visit witc.edu/programs. Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College serves the educational and career needs of more than 25,000 residents of Northwestern Wisconsin each year. With multiple campuses, WITC offers career-focused associate degree programs, technical diplomas, short-term certificates, customized training and a wide array of courses for personal or career enrichment. WITC is a member of Wisconsin Technical College System.

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From lacrossetribune.com: “Elderly care: Fastest growing job may be hardest to fill” – Wisconsin’s population is growing older, and in the coming years there may be nobody to take care of us.

It’s what Pat Killeen calls a “perfect storm” for the health care industry.

Killeen is the former head of the Gundersen Lutheran Health Plan and now serves as vice chairman of the Coulee Region Long-term Care Workforce Coalition, an organization that has tried to foster training programs and educate the public on long-term care issues.

He’s worried because the fastest-growing occupations in Wisconsin — jobs taking care of the elderly and disabled — are the hardest to fill.

There’s no question that the nation is getting older. Life expectancy continues to rise, the oldest baby boomers are already entering their 60s, and younger people aren’t having as many babies as they used to.

That means by 2035, nearly one in four Wisconsin residents will be 65 or older — more in some rural counties — according to projections from state demographers.

People living longer are more likely to need care for chronic health conditions, which doesn’t just mean more visits to the doctor, but also help with daily tasks like bathing, dressing and housework.

But those same people moving into old age are also leaving the workforce.

Though the majority of people who receive long-term care rely on unpaid help — usually from family or friends — direct care workers, such as home health aides and personal care attendants, are the state’s largest occupational group and some of the fastest growing occupations.

They account for about a third of Wisconsin’s health care workforce and are responsible for about three-quarters of all paid hands-on care, according to a report by the Paraprofessional Health-care Institute.

But long-term care providers say they can’t fill job openings.

An economist will tell you there’s no such thing as a worker shortage. It’s just that the jobs don’t pay enough.

That’s the case at Independent Living Resources, one of several providers serving disabled people in the La Crosse area, which struggles to fill openings for home and personal care workers.

“People don’t get paid well for the type of work they’re doing, and it’s hard work,” said executive director Kathie Knoble-Iverson. “Everything from cleaning floors to cleaning the person.”

The average home health aide in La Crosse earned about $11 an hour last year, according to data from the Department of Workforce Development. A personal care worker made about $9.

At Independent Living Resources, some personal care workers are nursing students getting experience in the field; many are older women supplementing their Social Security benefits.

So why not offer better pay? Because Medicaid, the primary funding source for long-term care, reimburses for personal care services at $16.08 an hour, which providers say doesn’t cover their costs. Rates were last increased in 2008 — by 1.5 percent.

“If we could get a decent raise I’d pass it directly on to our employees,” Knoble-Iverson said.

‘Not a pretty picture’

With funding from a three-year federal grant, Western Technical College is rolling out new programs to recruit students to the health care field.

Beginning this spring, students can enroll in a 40-hour personal care worker training program for about $112 that will provide graduates with a certificate to allow them to start work, and — the college hopes — provide a stepping stone to a career in nursing.

“We want to get people employed and give them a taste of the health care profession,” said Sandra Schultz, coordinator of the Bridges2Healthcare program. “Perhaps they would move onto another field on down the road. It’s all about building new skills.”

But the training requirement is a disincentive for new workers considering an entry-level job.

“You can go work at Best Buy for $10 an hour,” said T.J. Brooks, chairman of the economics department at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where he teaches a course on the economics of health care. “And they start paying from day one.”

Even with a labor surplus, Brooks said many unemployed workers will wait for the economy to improve to land higher-paying jobs.

“It’s not a pretty picture,” said Jerry Hanoski, chairman of the long-term care coalition. “What do you do when you need a service and it’s not there?”

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From journaltimes.com: “Gateway president serves on 50 boards” – Gateway Technical College President Bryan Albrecht has joined his 50th board.

“I’m supposed to start saying no now,” Albrecht said, laughing.

Gateway announced last week that Albrecht had been appointed chair of the American Association of Community Colleges’ Sustainability Education and Economic Development Task Force. The position, to advance sustainability and environmental curriculum, brings the number of regional, state and national boards Albrecht serves on to 50.

He acknowledged it’s a lot but said they’re all related to Gateway, which means the college isn’t hurt by his attention getting pulled in so many different directions.

“Gateway Technical College does not suffer. I would hope people would see just the opposite,” Albrecht said, explaining he’s always connected to Gateway in person, by iPhone or via iPad. “My role is to be that liaison between our college and our community.”

Because of the myriad boards that boast Albrecht as a member, Gateway has state and national ties, and the college has increased opportunities for grants. Plus Albrecht can bring good ideas back to Gateway and can tailor Gateway’s offerings to meet community needs, he said.

“Everything has a correlation along the way, whether it’s working with early, elementary, middle, high school or adult learners,” he said.

The Boys & Girls Club of Kenosha Board allows Albrecht to support youth who are future Gateway students or whose parents may attend the college. The National Manufacturing Skill Standards Council Board helps Albrecht connect Gateway to new industry advances. Workforce development boards let Albrecht and Gateway help dislocated workers.

And that’s just to name a few.

With all these boards, Albrecht said he doesn’t just lend his name; he actually participates.

“He’s one of my most active board members,” said Wally Graffen, CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of Kenosha. “He brings a lot of enthusiasm. He is not afraid to think outside the box.”

For example, Graffen said, Albrecht helped bring culinary arts, GED classes and dental screenings to a newer Boys & Girls Club location at 1330 52nd St. in Kenosha.

When Albrecht can’t attend a meeting in person — which is bound to happen when you serve on 50 boards — he’ll conference call in or send a Gateway representative in his place. He’ll also read the minutes and offer some comments, he said.

Between his board and college duties, Albrecht said he works 15 to 17 hours a day. When asked how much sleep he gets, Albrecht laughed before replying, “Not enough.”

“There could be an event I would go to every night of the week,” he said, adding he usually has three to five board meetings a week.

His schedule last week showed he had 13 board-related events Monday to Saturday, from meetings to forums and recognitions.

But it’s all by choice and all of the boards are volunteer, Albrecht said.

“I don’t want the article to feel like I’m feeling sorry for myself,” he said. “I choose to lead our college by community engagement.”

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From fox11online.com: “New partnership between NWTC and Southwest” – GREEN BAY – Area high schoolers will soon have an edge after graduation.

It’s part of a new partnership between Northeast Wisconsin Technical College and Green Bay Southwest High School.

Come next school year, juniors and seniors at Southwest High School will be able to take courses like those offered at NWTC, within the walls of their school.

“It’s really trying to bring training out into the high schools so that students can experience what are the career pathways in the technical areas,” explained NWTC vice president of learning Lori Suddick.

Next school year five courses will be offered through NWTC, including welding and graphic technology.

The classes will be taught by Southwest staff.

NWTC will provide the training.

The partnership has been in the works for more than a year.

It was approved by the Green Bay school board Monday.

Already, school officials say students are showing interest.

“There are a lot of kids who are starting to talk about it, I think the word is really now starting to travel,” said Southwest High School principal Rod Bohm. “In fact, I got a couple calls today (Thursday) from parents who are also very excited to know more.”

According to some recent reports, this opportunity couldn’t come at a better time.

Data released this year by the Northeastern Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance says one in four jobs in Wisconsin is in manufacturing.

And almost one out of two companies will find it difficult to find skilled, local talent.

“Employers need skilled workers and they need them quickly,” Suddick said. “So by providing duel credit experience in high school, we can put them through the pipeline into those careers.”

NWTC officials plan to expand the program the following school year.

They expect to add around seven new courses, from engineering to design courses.

District officials say other high school students can participate.

“Travel is always a trouble spot for students when they try to stay at one school and travel to another for courses, but because these fall into a block, that might be possible, for them to stay at their home school and then come over,” explained executive director of learning Kim Pahlow.

If this program goes according to plan, Pahlow hopes it can eventually expand courses to other district high schools.

NWTC officials say this is partnership is a spin-off of another partnership they have with schools in Marinette County.

They’re also currently in talks with Door County schools to start similar programs.

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From oakcreek.patch.com: “MATC training brings Oak Creek programs together” – A training exercise ongoing at Milwaukee Area Technical College provides a pretty good glimpse at what goes on at the Oak Creek campus.

The situation is this: a (fake) person fell out of a tree and had to be hospitalized, which put nursing students to work. After he got out, he got his hair done, got some cosmetic services, saw a dietician. All things taken care of by students in those particular fields.

On his way home, however, he got into a car accident, which was staged Thursday on the west end of the campus, 6665 S. Howell Ave.

Students training to become police officers, firefighters and paramedics responded. The crash required extrication of two mannequins, a car fire that needed extinguishing, CPR and a police investigation.

The person — played ably by a talking mannequin — will later have complications in the hospital and die, necessitating the work of students training in the funeral services field.

The exercise shows how the MATC programs work together and helps build collaboration among disciplines, officials said.

Thursday’s two-hour training also included two Oak Creek paramedics who lent their services and an ambulance.

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From lacrossetribune.com: “Our view: Jobs more important than politics” – Counting jobs — or the lack of jobs — seems to be a popular Wisconsin pastime these days, perhaps surpassed only for a few months in the fall by avid hunters obsessed with the way we count deer in the woods.

It’s hardly surprising in the midst of a governor recall election that there’s plenty of political spin on the numbers, but they are legitimately at the center of the campaign debate.

Gov. Scott Walker promised to create 250,000 of them during his first term — so far the tally is at 5,900 in the private sector. And let’s not forget that candidate Tom Barrett — who would like to challenge Walker again if he makes it through the Democratic primary — made a lofty promise in 2010 that he would help create 180,000 jobs.

Predictably Walker’s campaign is focused on the fact that our state’s overall unemployment rate continues to fall and there were 17,000 jobs created in January and February. But the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that Wisconsin lost 23,900 jobs from March 2011 to March 2012, the worst in the country. By far.

Clearly this topic will receive much more attention as the governor’s recall election heats up. But the solution is neither partisan nor magical — it will require everyone’s focus in both the public and private sector. It’s unfortunate that the Legislature did not focus more on the economy and jobs in a special session last fall called by the governor for that very purpose and during the recently concluded spring session.

We need more innovative programs like Wisconsin Workers Win, a new law passed last year that will allow potential workers to continue to collect unemployment benefits for up to six weeks while they are enrolled in job-training programs. A pilot program is being launched in southeastern Wisconsin that also would pay trainees $75 a week during the period to help with additional costs.

We need more collaboration with our technical colleges to better match training with careers that are in demand. That’s difficult to do when we’ve cut $71 million from the state’s technical colleges. Western Technical College has a waiting list of students wanting to get into the welding programs. Local companies need more welders, which are better- than-average paying jobs.

We need to eliminate the skills gap for other jobs that prevents the long-term unemployed from being chronically unemployed as the labor market continues to adapt and change to the new economy.

We need to find a better way to prepare high school students for pathways into either technical training or higher education by forging stronger business and college partnerships. The days of high school graduates landing high-paying jobs without more skills or education are over.

Promises from politicians to create jobs are worth the hot air they’re built upon. We’re bound to hear plenty more hyper-partisan rhetoric about jobs through the recall election and, unfortunately, beyond as we head into the fall elections.

We can hope then to remove the politics and get to work putting Wisconsin back to work.

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From onmilwaukee.com: “Local caramel company signs deal with Williams-Sonoma” – Beginning this fall, high-end gourmet giant Williams-Sonoma will feature a local company’s wares in its catalog and online offerings.

Salted gingerbread and cinnamon apple crisp are just two of the caramel flavors that will be included in a series of seasonal collections and variety boxes, all bearing the name of Pewaukee’s Becky’s Blissful Bakery.

The journey began when Rebecca Scarberry, owner of Becky’s and recipient of the Business Journal’s 2012 Forty Under 40 Award, Googled Williams-Sonoma and found the name of the buyer she needed to contact. Once she obtained that information, she sent him a spec sheet, along with samples of all of her caramels. The rest, as they say, is history.

“It was almost 7 o’clock at night when I got the phone call from their buyer,” Scarberry recalls. “He opened the conversation by telling me that they were the best caramels he’d ever tried in his life. He also told me they were the cleanest product he’d ever seen – no extracts, no emulsifiers and no preservatives. And then he asked me how I knew Todd.”

As it turns out, the buyer from Williams-Sonoma was a college roommate of Todd Wickstrom, co-owner of Rishi Tea and one of Becky’s Blissful Bakery’s local vendors.

Partnering with local companies has always been a large part of Scarberry’s business model. With an emphasis on high-quality, organic products, her caramels incorporate offerings from Lakefront Brewery, Rishi Tea and Stone Creek Coffee, in addition to Clover Meadow Winery, the only certified organic winery in the state of Wisconsin.

“When I first started my business I always said, ‘If I get into Sendik’s Fine Foods, then I’ve made it.’ Then it was, ‘If I can make it into Whole Foods, I’ve made it.’ And after that, ‘If I can just make it into Williams-Sonoma …’ so I don’t know where else I’m going at this point, but I really like it.”

But, lest you get the idea that Scarberry’s business has always traveled a fairytale path, it’s useful to take a look back at her humble beginnings.

Rebecca Scarberry was seven months pregnant when she moved to Wisconsin with her now-ex-husband, after spending 10 years living in Arizona. During her first winter in the state, she spent the bulk of her time baking.

“I grew up in the kitchen with my grandma. I felt comfort in the making and baking. I don’t cook much, but I love to make anything with sugar. Cookies, cakes, bars, candy, you name it. When I was pregnant with my son I shifted over to making everything with organic products.”

In 2007, the manager at Good Harvest Market in Pewaukee offered to sell her organic caramels in the store. Subsequently, she met a woman at church who had just purchased a candy shop in Waukesha, and they allowed her to rent their kitchen by the hour.

Her hobby business continued through December of 2008, when Scarberry hit bottom. In the same week that her divorce was finalized, she lost her job as an executive assistant for an Elm Grove architecture firm. Her world was turned on end.

But, rather than sitting home over the holidays feeling sorry for herself, she turned to her kitchen stove and cooked up a caramel business.

As a first step, she rented a kiosk at Southridge Mall and sold caramels during the weekend before Christmas. The next season, she started selling at the Fox Point farmer’s market. That’s where she met Deb Deacon, and subsequently journalist Karen Herzog. Herzog was impressed with Becky’s story, and ran a piece featuring her business over Thanksgiving weekend.

The publicity threw Scarberry’s business into full swing. But then, as luck would have it, she was offered a full-time job. As a single mom, it seemed like a no-brainer to simply take the job, so she did.

But, after three months of work, Scarberry realized that she would regret it for the rest of her life if she didn’t move forward with her caramel business.

Scarberry attended a quick-start business workshop at the Waukesha County Technical College Small Business Center. She employed a WCTC student, Brianna Dederich, to design her brochures and labels. And then she began ramping up production.

When circumstances required that she move out of her current commercial kitchen, Scarberry realized that she had to make some serious decisions about her business. She had just used up all of her capital purchasing a $9,000 cooker, and didn’t know how or where she could afford to move. Fortunately, she met Pewaukee resident-turned-developer Bob Zimmerman, who had just put his money into rehabilitating the village well house at 214 Oakton Ave. in Pewaukee.

With a new roof and other repairs, Zimmerman gave the 1929 “Water Works” building a new life. He also threw Scarberry a life-line when he helped her acquire the building to house her business.

Although she had a new space, Scarberry still needed to ensure that her new digs were up to code for food production. Since banks still weren’t handing out loans, let alone to a recent divorcee with a small business, she sold her minivan to pay for the $15,000 build-out for her new kitchen space.

After moving into the well house, Scarberry hit another bump in the road. Her caramels began crystallizing, creating production issues. Some were too soft. Some were too hard. She didn’t know what to do. So, she hired a consultant from the American Association of Candy Technologists, who assisted her in making changes to her recipe and cooking processes to solve the crystallization issues and give her product a nine-month shelf life to boot.

“Hiring the consultant saved me,” Scarberry reflects. “It cost me a lot of money, but it saved me. I wouldn’t be in business had I not taken that step.”

Becky’s Blissful Bakery currently offers 10 flavors of caramels, including original caramels, original with sea salt, dark chocolate with sea salt, cashew, espresso dark chocolate, chai tea, salted beer and pretzel, margarita and sangria. They also produce jarred caramel sauce, and are working on a champagne caramel to push out into the market later this year. Scarberry also hopes to create a new layered marshmallow caramel using organic marshmallows.

With current production exceeding 1,750 four-ounce boxes of caramels per week, Scarberry now employs three full-time staff as well as several part-timers who help out with events. In addition to wholesale and limited retail distribution, she also continues to sell her product at three area farmer’s markets.

“People ask why I still sell product at the farmer’s market,” remarks Scarberry. “I get real-time, true feedback, and I get to stay connected to the community, which is huge. For a small business, once you pull that plug, it changes everything.”

With regard to her recent success, Scarberry attributes it to the support she’s gotten from her partners and individuals in the community, in addition to good old fashioned hard work and good timing.

“Everything happens for a reason,” she says. “The fact that I made it through 2011 is just amazing. Had I reached out to Williams-Sonoma before now, it would definitely have been a ‘no.’ Everything literally happened as it should.”

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From host.madison.com: “Goals for regional economic growth outlined” – About 300 elected officials, company heads and community leaders from south central Wisconsin were told Wednesday it’s time to stop resting on their laurels, get past any rural-urban conflicts of the past and work as a team if they want to spark the area’s economy in the coming years.

Advance Now, the eight-month project to create a plan to spur economic growth for the eight-county Madison region, presented its recommendations and promised a series of goals that include:

• Increasing the number of businesses by 5.2 percent in the next five years.

• Compiling a list of “shovel-ready” sites for development.

• Matching local company needs with training and education programs.

• Increasing access to capital and developing a regional system to bring innovations to market.

• Closing racial and geographic achievement gaps.

• Increasing the number of minorities in leadership positions.

• Creating a regional brand identity and a national public relations campaign.

In a presentation at the Sheraton Madison Hotel, Mac Holladay, chief executive of Market Street Services, exhorted local leaders to set aside any bickering of the past.

“This is not a partisan politics game,” Holladay said sharply, drawing applause. “It is time for you all to stop yelling at each other and start talking to each other … (or) this place is going to fail.

“The silos need to come down. The boundaries don’t matter.”

Holladay’s Atlanta consultant firm has been working on Advance Now with Thrive, the economic development partnership for Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Rock and Sauk counties.

Holladay reiterated statistics compiled for Advance Now showing while poverty in the region is low, it is growing faster than in peer regions of Austin, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; and Lincoln, Neb. In addition, per capita income is below the national average.

“You cannot take your past success for granted, because it is slipping away from you already,” he said.

A 119-page report details hundreds of specifics, which also include piloting a network of life sciences entrepreneurs and considering establishing an arts incubator.

Holladay said it’s “going to take a lot of money” to have adequate staff and resources to handle this type of effort. At a reception after the presentation, Holladay estimated costs of $1.5 million to $2 million per year for the next five years.

A strategy of this size generally involves 10 to 20 staff members, said Thrive communications manager Betsy Lundgren. Thrive currently has six full-time employees and two part-time interns.

Kaleem Caire, president of the Urban League of Greater Madison, said the effort may involve hiring someone to boost opportunities for minorities to create “a true region, not one based on fiction but one based in reality.”

The next phase of Advance Now will be to put the recommendations into effect, starting in 2013.

“We’ll proceed with implementing it and tracking it as we go,” Lundgren said.

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From cvtc.edu: “CVTC hosts regional conference focusing on future of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education” – The future of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education in Wisconsin was the focus of a regional conference held recently at Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC).

“The STEM conference was a wonderful opportunity to bring together representatives from business and industry, higher education, K12 education, and a number of community agencies to assist us as we work with others from across the state to create Wisconsin’s road map for STEM education,” said Dr. Ellen Kirking, CVTC’s vice president for education.  “Through these conversations we were able to generate ideas that will help us as we build this framework.”

The gathering at CVTC was one of six regional conferences held throughout the state.  In her welcoming address to the nearly 90 participants gathered at the Manufacturing Education Center, Ellen said, “Our economy and the quality of life in Wisconsin will grow and thrive through the development and promotion of STEM education and careers.”

Ellen cited statistics from the State Office of Economic Advisors indicating that 10 percent of all jobs in Wisconsin are STEM-related, and that percentage is expected to rise to 20 percent for all new jobs created in the state between now and 2016.

The purpose of the STEM conference at CVTC was four-fold:

• To build awareness of the value of STEM education as a pathway to economic success.
• To provide resources and experiences for Wisconsin educators, from pre-kindergarten through college, to develop STEM knowledge and skills.
• To position STEM education as a valued outcome for all Wisconsin students.
• To promote STEM skills as an economic advantage for those entering the Wisconsin workforce.

Aliesha Crowe, dean of Energy, Agriculture, and Technology at CVTC, led the K-12 educators during their discussion of STEM issues at the conference.  Her group included administrators, teachers, counselors, and high school career prep staff from school districts throughout the CVTC and Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College districts.

Aliesha explained that the Wisconsin Technology Council will compile the ideas and suggestions coming out of the conference at CVTC and the five other regional STEM conferences into a “white paper” that can serve as a guide for a statewide approach to STEM education during the next decade.  This “white paper,” also referred to as a “road map” for the future of STEM education in Wisconsin, is scheduled to be released this fall.

“The people at our conference were excited to contribute to the STEM road map report, and they are very interested in receiving the report when it is completed,” Aliesha said.

“Success in advancing STEM education relies heavily on cooperation amongst those with a vested interest in STEM and a shared knowledge and language of what STEM really means for Wisconsin,” she added.   “I see the road map as a critical step in establishing the partnerships and sharing the knowledge.  In addition, I think the STEM road map report will be very helpful in fostering further development of STEM initiatives at CVTC.”

Aliesha explained that CVTC established a STEM Planning Team in 2010. That team, which includes Student Services and Academic leadership as well as faculty, has been working to increase enrollment in STEM-related programs at the college and to create awareness of STEM education at CVTC and throughout its 11-county district.

“The advancement of STEM education in the state of Wisconsin is not a K-12 issue or a higher education issue, but rather a statewide issue,” Aliesha said.  “The great turnout of K-12, higher education, business and industry, and community representatives at our STEM regional conference clearly indicates the importance of STEM education to west-central and northern Wisconsin.”

Ellen also praised the outcome of the regional conference at CVTC.

“Using our vision for Wisconsin, we can work to overcome myths and misinformation about STEM, give students the foundation they need for their careers, and give employers the talented and qualified workforce their businesses need,” she said.

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From waow.com: “Experts offer advice for job seekers, displaced workers” – New numbers show Wisconsin lost more jobs in the past year than any other state in the country. The state lost 23,900 jobs from March 2011 to March 2012 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.

But it’s not all bad news. During the past two months, the unemployment rate fell in every county in our viewing area but two: Vilas and Forest.

Employment experts told Newsline 9 jobs are out there, you just might need some extra training to land one.

That’s why Terry Olds is hitting the books to land a new job. ”Last time I was in high school was 1975 so now coming back to school and doing math, some of that I’ve never had,” he said.

Olds started working at the NewPage mill in Whiting after graduating high school, but he lost that job last year when the mill shut down. “You know, I’ve worked there for 34 years, high school education, you know, ‘what do I do now?,’” he said.

His answer? Go back to school–a choice employment experts say is becoming more common.

“You know you have jobs and you know you have people who need jobs but we need to get people’s skills upgraded,” Tom Younger, manager of the Marathon County Job Center said. ”We have so many really good workers who were displaced because of the economy.”

To some of those workers, he recommends getting some specialized training. Olds did. He’s enrolled in a welding program at Northcentral Technical College. School leaders say such specialized training gives graduates an edge.

“We help them gain the skills and knowledge they need to really get a good job now,” Vice President of Student Services for NTC Laurie Borowicz told Newsline 9.

Over at UW-Marathon County, officials say laid-off workers can benefit from getting a degree.

Jim Rosenberg, adult student initiative coordinator for the school said, “If you look at the statistics about unemployment, and also pay ranges coming out of that it really matters to have academic credentials.”

But going back to school can be expensive. School leaders said there are federal programs to help pay for it. Olds qualifies for one of those programs and says this new adventure has given him a second chance.

“Everyone that’s lost their jobs, just keep your head up,” he said.

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From wxow.com: “WTC Annual Dumpster Dive” – La Crosse, WI (WXOW)  How much of what’s thrown away could be recycled?  That’s a question Western Technical College officials set out to answer Monday morning.

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