Trade and technical schools important for local and regional economies

By Andrew Weeks

Dean Bursheim owes his career as a construction manager and electrical technician to a North Dakota trade school. He said it was his training at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton -- not a university -- that initially prepared him for his career journey that took him across many states and foreign lands.

When retirement age approached, he continued to work because, in part, he enjoyed what he was doing. He didn’t retire until 2015 at age 71 and now enjoys doing the more leisurely things that make ending a long and successful career worthwhile.

Bursheim worked a number of jobs over the course of his career but settled for the last 33 years of his career with Bechtel Group Inc., an engineering, construction and project management company headquartered in San Francisco. He said university training isn’t for everyone and encourages young people to find their own career path, much as he did, at a trade school.

“I was not really college material but wanted an education and decided to go into electrical technology,” he said. “I never did use the tools after I graduated from Wahpeton, but I went into the engineering technology side of the industry and I had a marvelous career.”

Others can do the same. But he worries that fewer people are interested in such pursuits these days.

“We’re seeing a real decrease in people wanting to go into the trades,” he said. “But we’re going to need (those types of skills) if we’re going to continue building infrastructure, et cetera.”

Reflecting on his career 55 years after he graduated, he said: “I’ve had a journey that has taken me to all regions of the United States and 13 foreign countries. The opportunities are still there today with vocational education.” attract new students, something Maduko calls a “fairly intricate process.”

Those in the know say much the same thing about the impact of trade and technical schools — that they remain an important factor in many people’s successes, but also in local and regional economies.

To keep the schools viable, they have to adapt to the changing needs of industries and continually attract new students. That means forging relationships with the business community.

“We’re a data institution, and so we are constantly assessing or conducting market analysis, where we’re focused on triangulating what the industry needs are right now, what is the job demand, and also finding the positive or green indicators that demonstrate there is demand for various programs that we offer.”

As one example of how the school works with the business community, Maduko said the school’s advisory board includes representatives from Sanford Health and Essentia Health, two of the largest health care providers in the region.

Minnesota State Community and Technical College, a comprehensive technical college that serves west-central Minnesota and the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area is one of them.

With nearly 14,000 students – about 7,000 in its basic accredited programs, and 6,000 in its workforce development solution non-accredited programs – the school offers a number of programs, such as civil engineering technology and construction management to training for careers in the health care industry.

In fact, its most popular program is nursing, according to Dr. John Maduko, the school’s vice president of academic and student affairs.

He said the school goes to great lengths to tap the business community in an effort to find what industries’ needs might be during any given year, and then to adjust programming to meet those needs. The sum of those efforts is synergy.

“Our programming is really a synergy between our credentialed faculty, which is our driver, and our industry partners,” he said. “We are committed to market analysis in terms of how we can better position our programs, what specific professions and skill sets are involved, and how we can better adapt programming to meet those needs.”

The efforts also help the school know better how to target and continued on page 14

“These advisory boards help guide individual program outcomes to the curriculum, student success, job placement, etc.,” he said. But they also give the school insight in terms of, for example, the needs of the health care industry, especially, he said, since the pandemic.

TRADE AND TECHNICAL SCHOOLS ARE IMPORTANT TO LOCAL AND REGIONAL ECONOMIES. HERE, MEDICAL STUDENTS GATHER AT SOUTHEAST TECHNICAL COLLEGE IN SIOUX FALLS, S.D. IMAGE: COURTESY OF SOUTHEAST TECHNICAL COLLEGE continued From page 13

What the school has learned is that the medical field is in need of more nursing professionals, a challenge that has been raised for years but was exacerbated by the pandemic. But there are workforce challenges in other fields, too.

“We’ve learned that beyond the technical application it is the essential skills that employers want,” he said. “Obviously from an employer standpoint, from an industry standpoint, there’s an investment in these positions, and so everything from understanding technology to being able to collaborate and being a team player, communication and being adaptable – these are essential and soft skills that also are transferable skills.” ***

bob Griggs

Bursheim, now 77 and living in Erskine, Minn., has a whole career to reflect upon, all thanks to the trade school he attended in a small town in North Dakota.

He said he didn’t follow the normal career path of his student colleagues.

Similarly, the largest programs at Southeast Technical College in Sioux Falls, S.D., have to do with the medical field.

“Our largest programs are our health care programs,” said President Bob Griggs. “I think our health care programs kind of lead the way.”

Other programs popular at the school include agriculture and engineering technology, the program that Bursheim pursued during his school days at Wahpeton.

Griggs said the school had a 76% student retention rate and 99% placement rate for graduates over the past year.

“I think we do a very good job of that,” he said. “We’re very proud of those numbers. It speaks to the quality of the programs, but also how much in demand our students are once they graduate.”

Last year 800 students graduated with a diploma or two-year degree certificates. That means hundreds who have entered the workforce. “And that’s just from our campus,” he said. Think of all the other schools that also graduate new talent. “A 99% graduation placement rate is very high and I just think that speaks to the impact we have. … I think we have a very large impact on the region.”

Griggs, who has worked in university settings, also points out one of the obvious benefits of attending a trade school instead of a university: It costs less.

He said there are more dual-credit options these days for high school students, which can put them ahead for their college experience, and that his school does a good job of sponsoring scholarships.

One of them is Sponsor a Scholar program, in which an industry partner pays up to 50% of a student’s tuition. The school applies the Build Dakota Scholarship to the other half of the expense.

“That’s another big way we’ve been able to attract students,” he said. “We can reach more students by industries stepping up and actually picking up half of the cost of that student’s tuition. In return, the student agrees to work for that employer for three years.”

Afterward, the student typically has the option to stay with that company.

“That’s been another way to work with industry partners and to attract more students to different career fields,” he said. “I think that’s a great option for many students. We want to just make sure it’s an option for all students.”

“Most of the people who graduated went into working with the tools, but when I graduated I had an offer from the University of Minnesota to work in its Department of Plant Services, doing design work for maintenance and remodeling buildings,” he said. “I found that very interesting. The work was really intriguing to me.”

His journey had only just begun.

Bursheim worked for the department for about three months, received his draft notice, and was fortunate enough to find an opportunity with the Air Force.

“Again, because of my education in Wahpeton, I got chosen to go into missile electronics, and so I spent my time in the Air Force working on Minuteman missiles,” he said. While stationed in Grand Forks, N.D., for six of the eight years he was in the Air Force, he took a parttime job with a design company, which opened further opportunities for him.

Later, he got a job with a contractor in Bismarck, where he managed all of its industrial work at the time. “We had contracts on every one of the power plants in central and western North Dakota,” he said.

That led to work with an international construction and engineering firm. He said: “That’s when the adventure started, because I worked with power plants.”

It’s an adventure that allowed him to work on various projects –from power plants and refineries to high-tech security systems – in 17 states. By 1990 he was working internationally with Bechtel Group. His career tally: 13 countries.

While he wasn’t the university type, he said, a trade school had suited his ambitions well, and today he encourages young people to pursue the trades – wherever their interest might lie – starting with a trade school. As he can attest, it can open a world full of possibilities.

“My wife and I had one goal,” he said. “In every country we were in, our goal was to touch one life. And we touched many lives.”