Ovation Awards: Excellence in Business Leadership

Tuesday, Jul 6, 2010

Honoring business owners, managers, education facilities and other key leaders for their foresight, management skills, training and overall success.

Motlow State Community College, Mechatronics Certification Program

Warren County

Business leaders with the foresight necessary to promote long-term innovation and global competitiveness oftentimes take the most important steps outside of actual business and industry settings. Intended as a way of providing industries with a more technologically integrated and multidisciplinary work force, the mechatronics certification program at Motlow State Community College in McMinnville is laying an important piece of groundwork for future economic development in the Upper Cumberland.

Spearheaded by MSCC president Mary Lou Apple, Accu-Router owner Todd Herzog, and mechatronics instructor Fred Rascoe, the new program began offering level-one and level-two Siemens certification from the school’s McMinnville campus at the start of the 2010 spring semester. Based on current enrollment, manufacturers could begin to see certified Siemens mechatronical systems assistants in their pool of applicants as early as August 2010.

Herzog believed that a program certifying workers in mechatronics would provide local industries with the level of skilled labor they needed. According to Rascoe, teaching mechatronics enables students to experience technology as it is used in the work force.

“When you get out into industry,” he said, “that’s really how you see it all: it’s all in a system. So we teach it in a complete system.”

With Motlow State’s proximity to Chattanooga’s Volkswagen production facility, Herzog believes that the availability of mechatronics certification within Warren County could provide the local work force with an advantage.

“German companies love mechatronics,” he said. “This could provide Warren County with a leg up on other areas.”

In addition to increasing the region’s global competitiveness, Rascoe believes that the program at Motlow State will also benefit the area’s local industries.

“It fits hand in glove with the industries that we have around here,” he said, “and they’re very much in support of it.”

The training system is composed of seven independent modules, each equipped with a PLC (programmable logic controller) that students can use to develop their troubleshooting skills and learn a module’s specific set of electronic schematics. The modules include stations using pneumatic, hydraulic and mechanical systems, as well as a computer-controlled robot.

The program holds huge potential for creating a positive economic impact on Warren County and the Upper Cumberland region as a whole. Because of the vision and exceptional leadership of its founders, the program now will likely provide prospective industrial employers with a more highly skilled, comprehensively trained and job-ready work force.

 

Dr. Gary Goff, Roane State Community College

Cumberland County

Dr. Gary Goff, president of Roane State Community College, has always kept his focus on improving education, but his demonstrated commitment to business and economic growth has shown that work force training also plays a big part in his plan for the school. After a four-year process, Goff successfully obtained $1.3 million in funding for the establishment of the Cumberland Business Incubator, a joint initiative of Tennessee Tech University, Roane State Community College, Tennessee Technology Center and the Cumberland County School System. The project is expected to create more than 120 jobs by supporting the growth of entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Brad Fox, an associate professor at Roane State and a key player in the development of the incubator, believes that Goff’s foresight will help improve and develop businesses throughout the region and beyond.

“His vision of the economic benefits to the surrounding community and the opportunities this will create for small business people in the community and students at the partnering organizations has been a steady motivating force,” Fox said in nominating Goff.

The 10,000-square-foot incubator is scheduled for construction at the Cumberland County Higher Education Center in Crossville, adjacent to the Roane State campus. As a growth tool for businesses, the incubator fits well into Goff’s overall plan for regional development.

“I understand that the per capita income and family median income in many of our rural counties is below state and national average,” Goff said. “We need the resources of Roane State Community College and Cumberland County to be able to help influence economic growth and development. That’s just been my mantra: ‘We have resources, so let’s put them to use to improve economic development and growth.’”

Goff believes that by raising per capita and per household incomes, other improvements will follow. These might include job growth, improved quality of life and increased participation in volunteer, charitable and civic activities.

“It is a benefit to the community to be able to improve family median income as well as per capita income,” he said. “When their quality of life grows, it impacts the community.”

Goff envisions that, once the success of the current incubator becomes apparent, other counties will follow its lead and support measures for business incubators in each of the six additional counties in Roane State’s service area. In addition to supporting the incubator project as a founding partner, Goff has promoted economic growth as president of Roane State and through his extensive displays of leadership and service within various civic organizations.

Dennis Tennant, Nashville State Community College

Putnam County

As director of Nashville State, Dennis Tennant has sought to make the school more visible as a provider of work force training for Upper Cumberland manufacturers. One way he has done this has been through his involvement with advisory boards and the Chamber of Commerce’s work force development team.

Consistent with Tennant’s vision, the school now has state-of-the-art lab equipment, software and processes available to students, creating a unique opportunity for the future work force to gain hands-on experience. In addition to training college students, the school also offers dual credit opportunities for Putnam County high school students as well as training programs for existing employees of area manufacturers.

 

STEM Center, Tennessee Tech University

Putnam County

As part of a greater effort to improve the pipeline between education and industry, Tennessee Tech University opened in May the Millard Oakley STEM Center. The center, whose focus is on providing an innovative facility for outreach, academics and research in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), is expected to greatly improve the region’s competitiveness in national and global industry.

The initiative to bring a STEM facility to Tennessee Tech was begun by an executive committee and is currently headed by center director Dr. Sally Pardue.