ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602190081
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Brooks Lindamood, maintenance coordinator at Volvo-GM Heavy Truck Corp., found himself back in school learning programmatic computer logic - how a computer tells a machine what to do - when that became part of his job.
So did Volvo electrician Jim Clark, who went through several computer courses to keep up with his changing job requirements.
Workers such as Clark and Lindamood are increasingly turning to New River Community College for the training needed to run the valley's high-tech assembly lines or to retool their own careers. They are filling classes on everything from statistics to nursing.
"It paid off," said Lloyd Richards, a former Radford Arsenal worker who got an electronics control job at Anderson Mavor, a mining equipment manufacturer in Giles County, after retraining in instrumentation and electrical work at New River. "It's well worth the effort."
The college has also become a tool to recruit industry to the valley. "Most new industries want to see this college. ... We have matured into a significant economic development component in the New River Valley," said President Ed Barnes.
Frances "Jeannie" Southern was one of those left without jobs when the Fairlawn AT&T plant closed in 1993. The area's industrial upheaval in the '90s - the AT&T closing and the downsizing at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant - sent hundreds of workers back to the community college seeking new skills for new jobs.
For Southern, it seemed like "the end of the world" at the time. But she decided it could also be an opportunity, and enrolled in the secretarial science program at New River. She now has her associate's degree and is working in the training department at Volvo, helping to get others trained in new skills.
"I don't think we ever learn too much ...," she said. "At times, you think: `I'll never be able to do it,' but it's just something you have to set your mind to."
The Virginia Employment Commission gives high marks to the NRCC staff and faculty for the job they did retraining displaced workers, said Perry Cole, acting manager for the job services division of the VEC office in Radford.
The college has been extremely helpful, said Don Brown, training supervisor at the arsenal. He has taken a computer course and sat in on many others to make sure New River supplied what his employer needed. "We've depended on them for years to do our computer-type training," he said. "It's been a real positive experience."
Helping local industries
"I do believe that, as far as administering and providing local industry with the tools in order to educate their employees, New River Community College far exceeds any technical school that I've seen," said Hi Nicely, a former executive with Magnox Inc. in Pulaski.
If an industry notified the college that it needed a program to train employees, "next day you'd have a staff in your office laying out what they could do and building that program for you," said Nicely. That emphasis goes from Barnes, the president, "right on down to the instructors."
"I guess we consider it more of a partnership with them on a continuing education basis," said Tony Noble, maintenance training coordinator at Hoechst Celanese Corp. in Giles County. "Everything that we've done in partnership with New River Community College has been very successful." The Celanese plant offers employees computerized courses such as grammar, writing and mathematics through the college.
Barnes first came to the college in 1972 as business development director. Now that he is in charge of the whole school, he is still enthusiastic about it serving industry.
"We touch many if not most of the manufacturing industries in the New River Valley at one time or another. We are touching more and more of the service industries."
"New River Community College is a major trainer for Virginia Tech," said Jack Lewis, New River's dean of management services. It has provided apprenticeship training, management development, computer software training and courses in English as a second language for the university.
New technology expands the campus
"The future of this college in serving business and industry is going to bring technology into the effort itself," Lewis said. The college had 1,372 students using telecommunications technology to take courses through distance-learning programs this past year, he said.
A course can be taught at New River and have students in the class through television at several other industries at the same time.
New River recently dedicated Edwards Hall, which contains much of that telecommunications equipment, Barnes said. "It has the capacity to do exactly what Jack's talking about."
Within the building, job placement is computerized, with databases of jobs in many fields. The equipment can not only run student resumes but help prepare them for job interviews.
The college has also branched out with a branch in a former Appalachian Power Co. building in Christiansburg, using compressed video to broadcast classes there. "That makes the Christiansburg site the equivalent of being next door," Lewis said.
The next technological step will be live video conferences with industry in widespread locations. "That's where we're heading," he said.
If an industry provides enough employees for a course, said Ron Chaffin, chairman of the college's Industrial Technologies Division, it will set up training programs on campus or at the industry itself.
Odd-hour classes for shift workers
"We have tried to be flexible enough to offer them the courses and programs they want, at the times they want them," Chaffin said. At the Volvo-GM plant near Dublin, for example, such classes were held from 9 p.m. to midnight.
"We have taught classes at 1 o'clock in the morning," Chaffin said.
The industry makes the request and the college finds the faculty member with the expertise. A visit to the plant follows, and the college submits a proposal covering time, date, cost and instruction. "The key is giving the industry the training that they need," Chaffin said.
"We customize," said Lewis. "We're good at doing that."
"We can take people from basic skills through technology and then on to college," Chaffin said. "Not only do we want to encourage good new industry
One example of that is when the valley almost lost the Volvo-GM plant to the Carolinas two years ago. State and local incentives kept it here. The biggest part of the financial commitment from the Allen administration was for the training and developing a curriculum customized to Volvo, Lewis said, and that was done at New River.
Sometimes several industries with similar needs can come together to provide enough employees for a class. A recent request to train four employees in production and inventory controls was too costly but, after surveying other industries, the college now has a pool of about 25 and will offer the course during the spring semester.
"We want to go to industry. We want to be their training arm, and we want to make it easy for their resource development people to call New River Community College," Chaffin said.
College graduates returning for training
Helen Harvey, director of the college's Business, Community and Computer Services Division, said she has seen an evolution in the needs her office handles.
Companies now ask for specific topics such as conflict resolution, total quality management, and refocusing structures so people work together in teams. "Always there's a demand for computer training and upgrading," she said.
In a year, she said, her division works with between 30 and 40 different companies focusing on the service sector. That amounts to hundreds of classes, credit and noncredit. "We have not told a company we could not deliver, at this point.
"We're getting some very bright students to work with now," she said. College graduates are coming back for new training, some with master's degrees.
The effort to serve industry has continued even as state support has dropped off.
"We manage our resources very carefully and very conservatively. Funding cutbacks have hurt," Barnes said. "We have 11 fewer employees at this institution today than we did a year ago. Our employees are continuing to be stretched thinner and thinner ... and there are no more hours left."
College staff members have spent increasing numbers of those hours seeking funds from grants and other sources.
"We just have to work harder at identifying other sources of funding," Barnes said. "But, as much as we're doing ... we're not even close to doing what we could do with adequate funding."
Barnes said the college has the right people in place at all levels to service industry in the valley - its potential limited mainly by funding.
"There are people who only come to you once in a lifetime, and they are all here now at one time. Our iron is hot."
LENGTH: Long : 163 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Gene Dalton. Jeannie Southern has her associate's degreeby CNBfrom New River Community College and is working in the training
department at Volvo, helping to get others trained in new skills.
color. (headshots) 2. Barnes. 3. Nicely. 4. Harvey.