Opinion Editorial by Commissioner Cook
Commissioner Cook listens to instructor Darren Block, left, about precision machining, while Michael Smith, field development officer with Texas State Technical College, looks on.
My brother, Randy Riddle, sponsors interns at his heating, ventilation and air conditioning business in Greenville, North Carolina, to expose them to a career path they hadn’t thought of before. His daughter and business manager, Rachel Davis, has been encouraging Pitt Community College, also in Greenville, to expand their trade and technical programs.
Nationally, companies are desperate to find well trained workers who want these jobs, instead of training people not suited for these jobs or who leave after time and money was spent instructing them.
I commend my family members for their efforts and recently informed them of my tour of Texas State Technical College inside the East Williamson County Educational Center in Hutto. The center is housed in a 112,000-square-foot facility located on 54 acres in Hutto, and their master plan calls for a total of 13 buildings.
Texas State Technical College, along with Temple College and Texas A&M University-Central Texas, partnered with the Hutto community to create this visionary and multi-institutional teaching center that provides a variety of educational opportunities and workforce readiness programs.
I didn’t know what to expect as we pulled into the parking lot of this campus out in the middle of large, grassy fields when I first began my tour on Sept. 8. Michael Smith, field development officer, conducted the tour, and Edgar Padilla, provost, warmly welcomed me to the campus.
One of the most jaw-dropping facts I learned was...