TORRINGTON – A host of dignitaries including Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead were on hand Thursday for the dedication of the new Career and Technical Education Center on the campus of Eastern Wyoming College here.
The facility, which houses welding, cosmetology and barbering programs and more, has been years in the making. And it took the combined effort and dedication of the entire community to make it a reality, Mead told the assembled crowd.
“This facility has been supported by the community,” Mead said. “You saw it as an absolute necessity for this community and for our state.
“(Wyoming) needs to diversify our economy,” he said. “We need to provide the skills and training people need to stay in Wyoming, get a job and prosper.”
Work on the $26 million CTEC project began in 2013, when EWC trustees approved submission of a capital construction request for the proposed facility during a June board meeting. Plans were finalized and financing secured over the next three years, and the college broke ground on the project in March 2016.
The project was financed as a joint effort from the state of Wyoming and through bonds approved by Goshen County taxpayers.
CTEC will fill a niche in the largest growth sector in the community college system, both in Wyoming and around the country – people who already hold a four-year degree, but can’t find a job, Mead said. Those people are returning to community colleges in droves, looking to acquire skills they can use to join the workforce.
Schools offering technical education also are on the front line in the statewide battle to lower the high school dropout rate. High school students who may not be destined for a four-year university often give up on education all together, Mead said. Providing an education, which can still lead to a well-paying career, can give them an option they might not otherwise have recognized.
“If our message to high school students is you have to get a four-year degree to be successful, we’re sending the wrong message,” he said. “Technical education is vital for the future of Wyoming.
“This will keep more people in high school,” he said. “And, after high school, with facilities like these available, this will serve them better.”
Jim Rose, Goshen County native and executive director of the Wyoming Community College Commission, said his earliest recollections of “the college” were hearing about it around the dinner table from his then-trustee father. It was known simply as Goshen County Community College then, he said. But, though the name may have changed, the role the college plays in the community has only grown.
“The community hasn’t changed in its support for the college,” Rose said. “The building in front of you is a testimonial to the faith you have in the future.
“It’s vital to support Wyoming education,” he said. “Community colleges are an integral part of that system.”
In addition to classroom, lab and workshop spaces, CTEC is home to a variety of art pieces, through the Wyoming Art in Public Buildings program, managed by the Cultural Resources Division of the Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources. Photograph, painting and sculpture are a permanent part of the décor of the building, highlighting the Goshen County and eastern Wyoming area, said Sara Needles, Cultural Resources Division administrator.
A committee composed of local residents, Needles said, selected the art, “to make sure the pieces represent the programs in the building and the community they’re in.”
Art in Public Buildings was established in 1991, she said. It earmarks a portion of funding for projects to commission artists to provide unique pieces.
A centerpiece of the curriculum now housed in CTEC is the welding program. The new facility is a big step forward, said Leland Vetter, retired EWC instructor who started the program almost 30 years ago.
Technical training nowadays is almost looked down upon in some sectors of society, Vetter told the crowd. But the commitment EWC has made to bring the CTEC to campus proves the folly of that attitude.
The world is “almost ashamed somehow to be working with our hands, like it’s somehow less honorable,” Vetter said. “There’s nothing wrong with working with our hands.”
In less than 25 years, the population of the planet is projected to reach nine billion people, and those people will need to eat, Vetter said. When thinking about how those people will be fed, instead of plants and animals, he sees farmers and ranchers, food processing, transportation and more.
“And welding will play a part in that process,” he said. “It has in the past and it will in the future.
“EWC is preparing people to be contributing members of society,” Vetter said. “We’re preparing people to work hard.”
