Point of View

Point of View

Oklahoma’s CareerTech system is known for its ability to help high school students obtain the technical skills that prepare them for a good job.

However, we suspect few people know about the broad range of training and other services that our state’s 29 technology center districts offer to local businesses and industries, nor the economic impact that they have had on our local communities. Actually, 58 percent of our system’s total enrollments are for local business and industry.

CareerTech offers those services to help our local companies keep a competitive advantage in what is rapidly becoming a world marketplace. Keeping our local businesses and industries productive and profitable keeps them in business and in Oklahoma. From that we all benefit.

Through the business and industry services division at local technology centers, local business and industry employees received job specific training through 231,483 enrollments last year alone. These are called “duplicated enrollments” because one person may enroll in more than one program or class, so they would be counted twice. The training they receive is training they can apply to enhance the performance for jobs they currently hold.

And it’s easy for businesses to do. They just call the local CareerTech center, discuss with the director of business and industry services the kind of training workers need, and the technology center does the rest. It’s that simple.

But that’s only part of the benefit of Oklahoma’s technology center system.

Few people realize that nearly half of a technology center’s full-time student body is not high school students, but adult students who are learning new skills so they can provide a better life for themselves and their families. Many of them were victims of the re-structuring, re-engineering or downsizing that’s occurring in today’s corporate world. These newly unemployed workers realize their ticket to success depends on marketable job skills.

Whether producing job-ready high school graduates or trained adults, Oklahoma’s CareerTech system is providing a steady supply of skilled workers for local businesses and industries. Local industries appreciate CareerTech’s role in developing a workforce that is productive and dependable, and that provides the competitive edge necessary for business success.

CareerTech has been a powerful force in the economic development of Oklahoma.

Just last month at our state board meeting Don Johnson, who is the plant manager for Great Lakes Carbon located in Kremlin, spoke to us about the challenges of operating a business in rural Oklahoma. He told us how Autry Technology Center in Enid has contributed to the success and competitiveness of the company. Great Lakes Carbon manufactures aluminum products for oil refineries and airline industries. The company spends $60-70 million a year, mostly in Oklahoma picking up 15-20 railcars of materials daily and ships worldwide, sending out 80-100 trucks daily.

Mr. Johnson said training provided by Autry Tech has helped them survive these tough economic times by reducing costs and increasing the product value for customers. That pleases corporate headquarters and bankers, or he said, their products would be sent elsewhere.

This is just one of hundreds of examples of business partners who are eager to tell their success stories.

Statewide, the system is credited with helping to convince more than 900 out-of-state companies to locate plants and manufacturing operations in Oklahoma. Many of the state’s largest employers – including General Motors in Oklahoma City, Whirlpool in Tulsa, Kimberly-Clark in Jenks and Armstrong World Industries, Inc. in Stillwater – will tell you how important CareerTech’s services were to them in their decision to come to Oklahoma.

Locally, the same is true. Companies seeking new plant locations know they can turn to CareerTech to find and train their skilled labor force. Established businesses also rely on the CareerTech system to provide upgrade training for their current employees.

It’s obvious that CareerTech is important to Oklahoma. But the tech centers and the economic development it has brought to our state – would not have been possible without the support the voters provided when they went to the polls and voted to establish their local technology center district.

It was an excellent decision. On behalf of Oklahoma, thanks.

posted 7/15/03

Press Release