Workforce training program offers customized curriculum

By KIMBERLY STAUFFER HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Nov. 25, 2008, 9:13AM

With the advent of new technology and increasing demand for broad skill sets, Lone Star College System's workforce training programs are helping to grow area businesses.

The system recently consolidated its Lone Star Corporate College program, creating a central base at the Greenspoint Center to funnel area businesses' training needs through. While each of the five colleges maintains liaisons to coordinate with campus staff, the program now allows the system to use any resource instead of forcing a business to rely on a single college.

“We have brought it all under one big umbrella with one phone number,” said Rand Key, senior vice chancellor and chief operating officer of Lone Star College System. “The Corporate College partners with each college.”

The streamlined operation makes working with the community an easy task.

“We've got one set of processes and procedures now,” said Susanne Thaler, director of Lone Star Corporate College. “In a large organization, that's a very important thing. It moves along more quickly in the system. They don't stop, their business continues, and we need to work at their pace.”

Corporate College offers training in skilled trades, such as welding, manufacturing, energy and transportation industry, as well as retail and hospitality. The expanding list of services has created a simplified environment for employers, making the community college accessible to all types of businesses.

“We are essentially a one-stop shop,” Thaler said. “We can work with a variety of solutions. We do everything from welding to accounting to leadership to change management to performance improvement. There's a host of things we can do and because we have instructional resources and many faculty and instructors come from industry, we can tap into those resources as a one-stop solution.”

Technology has made training more technical, Key said.

“Welding today is not the welding my father might have done years ago,” he said. “That has changed. It's become more electronic.”

Community college workforce training programs are a growing national trend, Thaler said. While the programs have a long history, it is only now they may finally become standout feature.

“We may be coming into more prominence as we have demographic trends that are shifting,” Thaler said. “The workforce is changing, different skills sets moving in and out. The country is aging, and a lot of knowledge needs to be passed on or trained in. Technology has changed things tremendously in the last few decades in just how we work. It's very different from what it was. A different set of skills needs to be brought into industry across the board.

“Twenty years ago (technology was) something just emerging, like the personal computer,” Thaler said. “Look at how embedded it is in the office environment. Technology has played a huge role in skills training.”

A large part of the system's Corporate College success is customized curriculum, Key said. The program will take the business' needs and create a specialized training tailored to their needs.

“If they come to us and say we need to do this, how can we accomplish it? We sit down with content area experts and work up a training,” he said. “It may be an eight-hour training class, might be a 16 hours or a for credit college course. We design it specifically for them. It's in pretty high demand, especially among manufacturers.”

Some of the program's clients include Montgomery County Hospital District, Huntsman Corporation, Hughes Christensen and Halliburton. These large corporations are not expected to come to their local campus for training, though.

“We do not expect them to come to us,” Key said. “We will take the training out to the plant or their headquarters location. Weekends, nights, you name it.”

Thaler coordinates with a team of business training consultants who, when contacted by a corporation or business, will send out a consultant to determine what is needed and bring back the information to formulate a curriculum and select the appropriate instructors.

“We're deeply embedded in all communities we are in. It's a very effective way of training and upgrading skills in the workforce,” Thaler said. “It's also a strength that we can help businesses grow. We take employees and cross train them in another area of the business and allow that company to have a deeper bench of people who can do a variety of jobs, which will benefit them in the long run.”

kimberly.stauffer@chron.com