Career Center adapts to workforce needs, opportunities
After graduating from high school, Golightly bounced between a number of jobs, including bank teller and loan officer. As her five-year reunion approached, she wanted to prove something to her young child at home and decided to enroll in the Columbia Area Career Center’s surgical technologist program.
Following 11 months of intensive training, Golightly found a position as a surgical technologist, a career she would stay with for six years. In February, she returned to the Career Center — this time as an instructor.
“It seemed like a cool opportunity,” Golightly said of her new position, in which she teaches students in the Career Center’s surgical and medical classrooms.
Surgical technology is one of many continuing education programs provided by the Career Center. The disciplines range from carpentry to business computer training and medical coding.
Last March, the Boone County Commission announced that the Central Missouri Workforce Investment Board provided a grant to study the gaps in labor supply and demand in the area. Rawlings said once the results of the study are known, the Career Center will work to provide courses that will meet the needs of Boone county employers.
The Career Center is next to Rock Bridge High School off South Providence Road. The small front of the building disguises a broad range of resources offered within. There is a fully functioning replica of a hospital operating room, complete with bright overhead lights and dummies that can mimic bodily functions such as a pulse and vomiting. Another classroom features a replica of a patient room, equipped with the same instruments a health care professional would find in a hospital.
Golightly said the center’s resources are a great replication of a real-world surgical environment. Students are also required to practice at local hospitals as part of their training.
You “don’t really know it until you do it,” Golightly said. “That’s when you know if you can cut the mustard.”
Behind the main building is a structure that is used for the education of future carpenters, electricians and heating and air conditioning technicians.
“There’s no lack of employment in this area,” Karl Christopher, placement director of the trade and industry area, said of the air conditioning technicians. Christopher said that morning he had seen three different technicians traveling to appointments while on his way to work.
The trade and industry sector of the Career Center provides apprenticeship programs for students in electrical, plumbing and heating and air conditioning. The separate programs in each area last four years, and, upon graduation, students are certified to work in their chosen field, said Daniel Darnell, an instructor in the trade and industry department.
Much like the medical area, students in the trade and industry programs are taught with real-world examples. Air conditioning students build their own air conditioner before graduation, Christopher said, and carpentry, electrical and plumbing students combine to build an actual house in Columbia. In total, the program has built about 15 houses, Christopher said, though in previous years the project did not include plumbing students.
The Career Center also works with local businesses to train current employees. Christopher said local businesses can use the center’s resources to hold training seminars for employees or bring a group of employees in to be trained by one of the center’s instructors.
Working with local businesses is one of the main functions of the Career Center’s Professional and Community Education Department, said Jim Sharrock, the department’s director.
A director of the University of Missouri’s undergraduate business program and recent hire at the Career Center, Sharrock said each area within the department has an advisory board made up of local business representatives and former students.
Sharrock said he consults with each advisory board when considering courses offered by the Career Center, and he’s always looking for local business people who would make good board members.
For example, after talking with representatives of local industries, center administrators decided to keep offering to train people in Microsoft Office 2003. Although Microsoft introduced a new version of the popular software in 2007, Rawlings said the center still offered more classes in the previous version of Office because many local businesses did not upgrade to the new software.
Bernie Andrews, executive vice president of Regional Economic Development Inc., said the focus on the skills local employers are searching for will become paramount following the results of the Workforce Investment Board survey, expected by the end of October.
Following the grant announcement in March, a subcommittee of a citizen’s task force examining local workforce training set out to find a consulting firm to prepare the survey. Andrews said the group members chose Florida-based MGT because they were impressed by similar studies MGT did for Cape Girardeau and other cities and states.
Since joining the project, MGT has reviewed local economic and educational trends and interviewed local education officials and business leaders, Andrews said.
The next step, according to MGT planning documents, is to develop a Web-based instrument to survey local employers. The consultant wants to determine what local education programs might be needed and the number of employees needed to fill positions this training would be geared toward.
High-school students will also be interviewed as part of the survey, a process that Rawlings said she and the Career Center will be involved with. (Along with its adult education program, the Career Center offers a wide range of classes to high-school students in disciplines ranging from graphic design to automobile maintenance and culinary arts.)
Once the surveys are completed and local needs are identified, MGT will provide the Boone County Commission with a report identifying employment needs in the area and the skills necessary to fill these needs.
Rawlings said the center plans to work with REDI to prepare training appropriate for the employment opportunities identified by the survey. It will be a continuation of the role the Career Center has played as a conduit between employers and those, such as Golightly, looking to advance their careers, Rawlings said. “We’re here to serve.”