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Cooperative living VIRGINIA’S ELECTRIC
January 2019
Building a Future in Southern Virginia pg. 16
CoverStory |
by Bill Sherrod, Editor
16 | Cooperative Living | January 2019
in the region, its mission statement has been broadened. “Advancing the potential of Southern Virginia through education, innovation and collaboration” is the center’s current mission statement. Adams says the center has expanded its scope over the past six or seven years to include delivering training for noncredit, industry-approved credentials, in addition to partnering with colleges and
PHOTO BY SIERRA deBLANK, COURTESY OF SVHEC
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outhern Virginia is an area rich in heritage, hospitality and resources. One of its greatest resources is its people, characterized by strong work ethic, loyalty and dedication to task. The region’s economic outlook has suffered in recent decades, however, as textiles, agriculture and other traditional commerce changed or diminished. Countering these withering effects, an idea planted in the 1980s has broken through the hardscrabble soil of economic woe, sprouted and blossomed into a vigorous crop of hope and opportunity. “In 1986, foundational partners Danville Community College, Southside Virginia Community College and Longwood College came together and cut the ribbon on what was originally called the South Boston/Halifax County Continuing Education Center,” says Dr. Betty H. Adams. Adams is executive director of the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC), descendant of the center founded in 1986. “Our first home was a 500-square-foot mobile unit on the grounds of the local high school,” she adds. Enrollment grew and in 2001, the center moved into an abandoned 100,000square-foot tobacco warehouse donated to the cause. Four years later, the General Assembly designated the facility a state agency, eligible for state funding. Since then, SVHEC has quietly but steadily expanded the region’s prospects, providing what the area’s people need: options for education and training; and with them, hope for a better economic future. Located in South Boston’s historic tobacco warehouse district, the center is one of five in Virginia, and the only one not located on or near a community-college campus. The others are in Abingdon, Martinsville, Roanoke and Danville. While the center originally focused on improving higher-education opportunities
PHOTO COURTESY OF SVHEC
South Boston facility uplifts region’s prospects
Dr. Betty H. Adams, executive director of the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC).
universities to provide access to traditional degree-program opportunities. This has been accomplished largely through innovation and collaboration with business and industry in direct response to community needs. “Our competitive advantage is the ability to be flexible and, therefore, responsive to the needs of the community and industry,” Adams says.
The center’s five main areas of concentration are facilitating access to two- and four-year degree programs, STEM-H (science, technology, engineering, math and heath) outreach, advanced manufacturing research and development, workforce development, and capacity building, which means ensuring there are enough workers, facilities, transportation and the other components of community in place for future growth. Today, two former tobacco warehouses house the center’s operations, which include state-of-the-art labs for occupations ranging from information technology to nursing to welding. “Southside Virginia has been, and continues to be, in a highly stressed economic condition. Job and career opportunities for the region’s residents have been limited far too long,” notes John C. Lee, Jr., CEO of Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative headquartered in Chase City. Lee was appointed by the governor to serve on the SVHEC board and serves as the vice chairman of the SVHEC Foundation board as well. The foundation owns the center’s facilities and raises money to fund its operations. “We want new and existing industries to take advantage of the work force that’s already here, but many of these companies need highly specialized skilled workers,” he adds. “The requirements to get into the workforce have changed tremendously,” Adams explains. “We have to have a skilled workforce, which means we need to provide affordable, accessible higher education.” co-opliving.com
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January 2019 | Cooperative Living | 17
PHOTO BY SIERRA deBLANK, COURTESY OF SVHEC
PHOTO BY SIERRA deBLANK, COURTESY OF SVHEC
“Our company has benefitted from the welding program,” says J.R. Griffin, president of Comfort Systems, USA. “We’ve hired four of the students who completed the program. And as important as the welding program is the workforce-readiness training program that SVHEC offers. This ensures that people have the basic work skills they need — how to do a resumé, how to dress for an interview, the importance of punctuality. “There are lots of good things going on Hospital-room laboratories where students treat “patients” in at the SVHEC,” Griffin various training scenarios were established and are maintained continues. “Students with the help of Sentra Halifax Regional Hospital. can get a two- or fouryear engineering degree STUDENT PERSPECTIVE: via distance learning, and also get specific ‘A GREAT EXPERIENCE’ training for a particular job; education and training tailored for our region.” “It was a great experience,” says Allen Health care is one of SVHEC’s Fallen, a South Boston resident. “I was emphasis areas, and the Center for working in landscaping and took the Nursing Excellence grew out of welding course to improve my job the community need for a quality prospects. I passed the welding test, was nursing workforce. certified and had a welding job within Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital two weeks after I finished the course.” has supported and helped develop Sharon Card, network administrator the Center for Nursing Excellence, for Charlotte County Schools, enrolled according to Torie Bashay, in SVHEC’s IT Academy to enhance her vice president of patient job knowledge and skills. The Chase care services and chief City resident has taken training at the IT nurse executive at the academy twice, and received three hospital. The hospital’s certifications that have directly improved support includes her ability to do her work. assistance in establishing “Many of the students in my classes and maintaining a real-life were older — in their 40s and 50s — hospital-room laboratory and many were in the midst of career in which students treat changes,” Card notes. “patients” in a variety of Card hired one of the students she training scenarios. met at the academy. “It’s a great way to “We employ many of prepare for an IT certification if you’re the graduates from that not going to college,” she says. “There nursing program,” says are a lot of IT jobs out there now.” Bashay. “The quality Danville resident Kierra Watson also of care we provide attended the IT Academy before being hinges on nurses being hired at GCAPS, the Halifax County tireprepared and ready research center. “I had a job, but not in to do the job of nursing, IT, and I wanted to get into IT,” says and high-quality nurses Watson. “I heard about the higherSouthern Virginia Higher Education Center’s data-center lab, are graduating from education center on Facebook from a established with the help of Microsoft, is the model for similar the Center for high school friend who’d been accepted facilities in communities around the world. Nursing Excellence.” into the academy. I was accepted into the COLLABORATION AND RESPONSE TO INDUSTRY NEEDS A case in point is the IT Data Center lab. “Several years ago, we started a partnership (with SVHEC) to benefit the workforce and the community at large,” says Anthony Putorek, senior lead workforce development program manager for Microsoft, which has a data center in nearby Boydton. “We helped design and set up a datacenter lab, set up scholarships, with lots of close collaboration, mentoring and hands-on training,” Putorek adds. “This has become one of the best hands-on training facilities for entry-level technicians. SVHEC is the first place this program was developed, and we now use it as a model for communities around the world where we have data centers.” “We worked with SVHEC to develop some specialized welding training,” adds Patricia Walker, an engineer with ABB, a global electrification products company that manufactures liquid-filled distribution and small power transformers. “Our entire welding workforce went through the training, and the center also provided computer-software training for our quality team, which interfaces with customers.” Walker notes that SVHEC is a valuable community resource that “brings education to the fingertips of the people, and partners as well with local industry to create educational and economic opportunities.”
Mechatronics program. “I was working at a Walmart distribution center in North Carolina when I heard about SVHEC. My goal was to further my education and increase my job opportunities,” he says. “The program and the center are great and I really like them. The instructors are very supportive and want to see their students do well. They invite students to contact them with any questions or problems after we’ve finished the program.”
Allen Fallen, a student of SVHEC’s welding course, found a job in only two weeks after completing his welding certification test.
Sharon Card enrolled in SVHEC’s IT Academy to enhance her job knowledge and skills.
program and it was an amazing experience. I was working and I would go to class after work, and it never got tiresome. I wanted to go to class. I got a job in IT after I finished the second course.” Eric Thomas of Altavista works at Georgia Pacific in Gladys, Virginia, as a technician. He earned his Siemens Level 1 certification through the SVHEC 18 | Cooperative Living | January 2019
PRODUCT DESIGN, RESEARCH, OPPORTUNITY AND HOPE David Kenealy is special assistant to the executive director for research and development. He came to SVHEC in 2008 from the community-college system in North Carolina to build the center’s Product Design & Development Program. In 2010, the PD&D Program was expanded with the opening of the Research & Development Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Energy Efficiency. R&D CAMEE connects industry, small businesses and entrepreneurs with research and development, prototyping, proof of concept and limited production runs to support commercialization and economic development. Among projects developed through SVHEC’s R&D center are design-andmanufacture processes for a specialized cabinetry stapler, reusable barrels for brewing spirits, and a precisionmachined part for Steinway & Sons piano frames. “The product is not the point,” Kenealy notes. Rather, process is R&D CAMEE’s magic. “We bring a design, engineering and manufacturing experience based on today’s digital technology,” says Kenealy. “We work with business and industry to help serve that part of the new economy.” “In the past 10 years, we’ve tried to focus on training that will lead to jobs in the region, jobs that already exist or jobs that are anticipated to exist in the future,” says SVHEC Executive Director Adams, “in health care, advanced manufacturing, information technology, energy and education.” In 2018, SVHEC workforce trainees earned 416 industry credentials, with almost 200 trainees finding new jobs or advancing in current jobs. SVHEC
Kierra Watson attended the IT Academy before being hired at GCAPS, the Halifax County tire-research center.
Eric Thomas earned his Siemens Level 1 certification through the SVHEC Mechatronics program.
workforce training programs produce an 89 percent completion rate and an 87 percent employment rate. “When it comes to your career, having choices is one of life’s greatest benefits,” says Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative CEO Lee. “The center provides great career choices and also represents great hope to those who are looking for a second chance co-opliving.comco-opliving.com
at a better life,” Lee adds. “It is a fact that the availability of quality education and training alternatives have a profound impact on a region’s economic viability, and the center is a valuable and much-needed asset for our region’s sparse inventory of career opportunities. Recognizing the high cost of low educational attainment to the individual, the family and the community, opportunities from this school offer direct paths to well-paying careers that may also allow recipients to work and raise their families closer to home. It also provides meaningful and valuable employment alternatives for high school graduates who are not inclined, or cannot afford, to attend college. Perhaps most importantly, it provides its students, and their families, with the hope of a brighter tomorrow.” The essence of the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center is underscored in its tag-phrase: “Opportunity Lives Here.” “I grew up in South Boston, and I moved away after college for work,” says Adams. “I remember when times were really good in the area. I want to see us get back to those days. In order to do this, however, we have to have an educated, skilled workforce, and that’s what the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center is working to do.” For more information, visit the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center website at svhed.org. 20 | Cooperative Living | January 2019
PHOTO COURTESY OF MECKLENBURG ELECTRIC CO–OP PHOTO COURTESY OF SVHEF
David Kenealy is special assistant to the executive director for research and development at SVHEC.
The Southern Virginia Higher Education Foundation, Inc. (SVHEF), is organized and operated exclusively to promote and enhance continuing educational opportunities for citizens in the Southern Virginia region. The foundation owns and maintains the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center’s facilities and raises money for its operation and scholarships. Dating to 1994, SVHEF has a 23-member board of community leaders, chief elected officials and volunteers. John C. Lee, Jr., CEO of Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative headquartered in Chase City, serves as vice chairman on the foundation board as well as a member of the board of the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center. “My first exposure to the center was when our cooperative was invited to hold its board meeting John C. Lee, Jr., CEO of on the site, then we took a tour of the facilities. Mecklenburg Electric We were both surprised and very impressed Cooperative and vice chairman with the good work that was going on there.” of the Southern Virginia Higher Lee was asked to serve on the foundation board Education Foundation board. in 2016, and after a year and a half was appointed by the governor to also serve on the center’s board. “I have a limited amount of time and want to spend what time I do have involved with something that will help the community, and the center and foundation really help the community,” Lee says. Ryan Garrett, chairman of the foundation board, notes that, “We’re working to change the story of Southern Virginia from one of survival to one of growth. Growth opportunities are what young families are looking for.” Garrett, a financial advisor and retired partner with Edward Jones, notes that the foundation Ryan Garrett, chairman of the hired Katrina Powell at the end of 2018 to serve SVHEF board. as its executive director. Powell is a Gulf War veteran who in recent years has worked in community- and organizational-revitalization jobs from Florida to Michigan. “We’re very excited to have a person of Katrina’s abilities on board,” says Garrett. “And this will be a sort of homecoming for her. She’s a Danville native.” One of Powell’s main duties will be fundraising, Garrett says. “That’s very important, and Katrina is very good at it. She has a proven track record, and we think she’s the right person to help us change our region’s narrative, from survival to growth.” As Lee observes, these are exciting times for Virginia’s southern heartland. Katrina Powell, executive For more information, visit the director of the SVHEF. foundation’s website at svhef.org.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SVHEF
PHOTO COURTESY OF SVHEC
FOUNDATION SUPPORTS WORK OF HIGHER-EDUCATION CENTER
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