Gateway partners
to produce workforce development

There are many ways in which Gateway Technical College works with its partners to provide opportunities for its students as well as businesses.

One clear way is in the area of workforce development. It’s an effort where unemployed or underemployed workers are matched with job training and then job opportunities.

The key is the link forged between two sides looking to connect potential employees needing training to give them the skills to a career and employers in need of trained workers. Without that link, both sides would continue to look without success.

One way we’ve been able to do that is in the area of welding. Our business community partners indicated there were too few trained welders to fulfill their production needs – but it’s happening in a community with a higher unemployment rate. Gateway works with workforce development partners to help provide the welding training so that both sides win.

It’s a true partnership, working with workforce development entities to help us determine what employers need – and then we can help generate a pool of trained workers to fill that need.

It’s an opportunity to ensure that workforce development and economic development work hand in hand.

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Gateway hosts
community Earth Day celebration

Celebrate Earth Day – a community celebration!
Gateway will hold the celebration 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 26.
The majority of the activities will be held in and around the Madrigrano Auditorium and horticulture buildings on the Kenosha Campus. Those activities include:

• Spruce up your neighborhood – and the community. A drop-off center will be set up at Gateway for bagged refuse, electronic equipment, computers, and bikes.
• Spruce up your yard. The City of Kenosha will provide compost up to 5 gallons – which would be great to work in with the seeds and plants available at the event. Oh, and there will be several demonstrations to help you with this and other yard projects you might be considering.
• Spruce up your home. There will be several demonstrations on how to keep your home “green.”
• Spruce up your outlook. It will be a fun event, so come on out!

Gateway will also hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Gateway Prairie at 1:30 p.m. to the north of the Kenosha Conference Center building.
More information can be found at www.gtc.edu/earthday

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Gateway graduation
set for May 20

Graduation ceremonies will be May 20 at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside Sports & Activity Center. Adult High School graduation will be at 4 p.m., and the diploma and degree ceremony will be held at 7 p.m.

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Gateway reaches out
with community conversations

The college’s Higher Learning Commission Community Conversation included Gateway’s community partners to discuss the college’s responsiveness to the community and its partnerships. The meeting was held April 2 at the Center for Advanced Technology & Innovation.

Community members identified positive themes about Gateway and described how they would like to see the college work in the future. Those at the event agreed they would like to see added Gateway capacity to serve the community and more contact made with schools and students about their careers at an even younger age than is currently done.

Meetings were also held at Elkhorn and Kenosha.

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United Way honors
Gateway with awards

United Way of Kenosha County recognized Gateway Technical College with the 2007 Good Samaritan Award at its March 14 meeting.

The award is given to an organization “which supports and advances the mission of United Way by making significant, nonfinancial gifts to United Way of Kenosha County,” according to the group. Some of those gifts include significant cooperation from Gateway in use of facilities and contributions made by college staff members. Gateway President Bryan Albrecht is United Way of Kenosha County’s board president.

Dennis Sherwood, a member of the United Way’s campaign cabinet, also was recognized for his work. Sherwood is Gateway’s Dean of Campus Affairs for the Kenosha Campus as well as dean of the Automotive Technology program. Sherwood will continue his work on the cabinet through 2008.

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Foundation to hold
annual golf outing

The Gateway Technical College Foundation will hold its 14th Annual Greater Gateway Golf Classic, May 22, at Meadowbrook Country Club in Racine to raise funds that increase opportunities to Gateway students.

Cost for the event is $175 per person which includes lunch, complimentary drinks, water, 18 holes of golf, golf balls, a goodie bag, greens fee, Gateway Scholarship Drop ticket, cart, dinner, and prizes. Dinner-only tickets cost $35 per person for nongolfers. Group sponsorship tickets are also available. Foursomes are limited.

Reservation deadline for the event is April 18. Proceeds from the annual event will benefit the Foundation’s scholarship program. For more information, call the Foundation office at 564-2866.

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Gateway continues
customer service training

Gateway continues its customer service training so it can provide the best service possible to the community with its “Service: A Degree Above” series.

The series will position the college for growth by helping train employees to provide quality customer service – which will help them to better serve an increasing number of customers. About 90 employees have undergone training through the program and another 75 will do so by June.

All employees will go through the customer service training within the next two years.

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Gateway continues dedication
to remain “green” by hosting seminar

Gateway Technical College will continue its commitment to “green” facilities management by hosting a sustainability conference for educators and facilities managers.

The Association for Career and Technical Education and Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. have created a two-day professional development seminar that will be held May 1 to May 2 at Gateway, Siemens, and other area businesses. The conference will discuss such issues as how schools can become “green,” developing curriculum that addresses green and sustainable buildings, career analysis, and how to find funding for these efforts.

Gateway realizes the importance of looking at "green" initiatives locally and internally and as part of that, will host this event to stress the importance to education and offer some "green" initiatives educators and facility managers can use in their learning environment.

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Secretary Gassman
announces CNC grant

As part of Governor Doyle's $850,000 Emerging Industries Skills Partnership initiative, Department of Workforce Development Secretary Roberta Gassman announced a $100,000 grant to the Southeast Wisconsin Workforce Development Board for “The Future is Now” project to train 50 workers in Gateway’s CNC boot camp programs.

Gassman announced the grant at a March 17 event at the Haas CNC Production Technician Lab on the Racine Campus, where it will be used to train workers through the boot camp program.

The grant is one of 10 being awarded under Governor Doyle's Emerging Industries Skills Partnership initiative, a total of $850,000 to provide new and incumbent workers with necessary skills and meet workforce demands in advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, and renewable energy.

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Snap-on consortium
meets at Gateway

Representatives from Snap-on and four premier educational institutions in the automotive industry gathered April 3 to April 4 at the Horizon Center for Transportation Technology to begin discussing the concept of creating a national consortium of transportation training institutions.

Gateway, along with Francis Tuttle Technology Center, Oklahoma City, Okla; Cerritos College, Norwalk, Calif.; and Lawson State Community College, Birmingham, Ala., will partner with Snap-on as a regional training consortium to develop and deliver advanced training with the goals of increased technician skills and improved productivity.

Gateway will help drive the effort by training the instructors – training the trainers – of the consortium partners, who will then become responsible for delivering training to consortium satellite centers. Their instructors will deliver the Snap-on certified curriculum to their students. Gateway instructors have already begun their train-the-trainer efforts by delivering Snap-on certified curriculum to automotive technology instructors from across the nation. The consortium will be the first to deliver Snap-on diagnostics training leading to certification as a Snap-on Diagnostic Technician.

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AITP students
bring home national honors

Gateway Technical College students from the Kenosha and Racine chapters of the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) brought home first-place honors in four categories at the national collegiate convention March 27 to March 29.

• First place:

Database Design: Blake Baranowski (Racine), Brian Hartman (Racine)
Data Center Management/Blade Server: Blake Baranowski, Brian Hartman
Student Chapter Professional Technical Banner Design: Jenny Counter (Kenosha)
Memphis Scavenger Hunt: Blake Baranowski, David Fanelli (Racine), Brian Hartman, and Louis Wegner (Racine)

• Second place:

PC Troubleshooting: Thomas Treptow (Racine)

• Honorable mention:

Network Design: Eric Backmann (Racine), Louis Wegner
Undergraduate Student Paper: Louis Wegner

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WMMA students
qualify for nationals

Gateway Technical College’s Marketing and Management Association-Kenosha organization won first place in the Wisconsin Marketing and Management’s Outstanding Chapter Award for the third straight year at the 47th Annual Competitive Events Conference held March 6 to March 9 in Madison.

This marks the 10th time the Kenosha chapter has won the Outstanding Chapter of the Year award since 1990.

The Gateway group also was awarded first place in the Diamond Chapter Division, an award given the chapter which excels in the four areas of vocational understanding, civic consciousness, leadership, and social intelligence. Students from two- and four-year colleges across the state competed in 20 marketing, management, design, and accounting events, attempting to qualify for the International Delta Epsilon Chi Competitive Event Conference, which was held April 12 to April 15 in Atlanta, Georgia.

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