Agency Update

Suzanne Constien, Agency Services Director, will be attending Our first Kansas Workforce Conference July 16th and 17th. Conference attendees will consist of both WIA and VR counselors. It will be held in Kansas City, KS at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center. More and more agencies have begun to send us their clients for Crane training.  Two agency students from Missouri will be attending our Heavy Equipment Operations Level 3 and Mobile Crane Operations Level 1 program. Texas workforce is sending a client to attend Mobile Crane Operations Level 1.

Texas WIA is sending us a City of Plano employee for training in the June 25, 2007 class.  We were told the training and experience their clients receive while attending our program in Oklahoma has been excellent. The Hurricane Evacuee program has been extended until September, 2007.

Student Uniforms Being Implemented

THE COLOR OF SAFETY

Our school has recently adopted a new dress code policy for our students.  Effective beginning with our 6/25/07 classes, students will now be sporting a bi-level colored t-shirt provided by the school.  Lime Green for HEOP 1, Orange for HEOP level 2, Red for HEOP Level 3 and Royal blue for both MCO programs. 

This new policy will provide a dual purpose. The new shirts help us to identify our students’ level by sight in the field, and increase our name recognition both locally and when the students return to their home states. This will also improve our control of who is operating which machine as well as our abilitiy to immediately flag someone who may be operating a machine he’s not enrolled for.  Our investment in these changes will make a measurable improvement to our student safety as well as improve our advertising. 

New Instructor Joins OCC

The training department welcomes its newest instructor, Scott Paul.  Scott comes to us with plenty of heavy equipment experience and a good knowledge of grades.  Scott’s work history ranges from California to Prudoe Bay, Alaska.  He has hit the ground running and is a welcomed addition.

Agency News

Missouri
Suzanne Constien, our Agency Services Director, recently attended the the Missouri Vocational Rehabilitation conference where OCC was recognized for outstanding service to the Missouri agency clients. 

There were three Certificates of Recognition awarded. Oklahoma College of Construction was one of the three, and the only out-of-state provider. Approximately 72 service providers were in attendance.  The speaker said OCC went above and beyond expectations in making their clients and the counselors feel comfortable about an out-of-state school. This service was provided prior to attendance and while clients were attending classes. 

The Scholarship for the food and gas was also mentioned as a “feel-good, secure feeling” for their clients going out of state.  Suzanne said she was proud to accept the award for our campus.  The State of Missouri has been very good to OCC-we have had approximately 8 MO/VR and 4 WIA students over the last 6 months.  I look forward to building an ongoing relationship with the Missouri WIA/, VA/VR and VR offices.  

Texas
Floyd Carter, a Texas WIA Hurricane Evacuee student, went back to New Orleans following graduation and has been working for Boh Brothers Construction for almost a year.  The company was very impressed with his heavy equipment knowledge and abilities.  He said his company will pay for him to get certified as a Crane operator and he is going to recommend Oklahoma College of Construction for his training.  He will be forwarding pictures and statements from his supervisor and co-workers regarding his ability and the training he received.

The Texas Workforce office in Plano has sent us 12 students over the last year, which is due to our continuing relationship with them and the training they receive while attending our training program.

Enrollment Record Set

OCC set a new record with 33 new starts on the June 4, 2007 start date. The industry demand for entry-level operators is fueling record-high enrollments and our graduates are becoming an ever more increasing commodity as more and more companies become familiar with the high quality of OCC’s graduates.

OCC Staff Travels to NAHETS headquarters for new program training

Last week I traveled with my Director of Training Services and Finance/Admissions Director to the NAHETS headquarters in Las Vegas for training on the new Yellow Metal Bootcamp field training program being introduced by NAHETS.

The bootcamp will be incorporporated into each NAHETS member school’s field training to enhance the equipment tasks portion of the training.  Bootcamp books will be issued to every student and the tasks are designed to enable students to accomplish equipment specific tasks of increasing difficulty and skill level.

The OCC campus plans to implement the bootcamp with a July 16, 2007 start.

New Employment Opportunity for Graduates

I think we just got our foot in the door with an employer that we have been working on for several months.  A recent graduate started working for this company and has done such an excellent job that they are starting to pay closer attention to our school and training program.

Word travels fast. After speaking with a grading superintendent for the company this morning, we had three additional employees of this large contractor (Blattner) contact us looking for people, one being the HR Director who we have been working with for several months. We got a voice mail from her saying our school got the “go ahead” to start hiring our graduates. What a great feeling! Now there are people besides the HR director interested in visiting our school and looking at our program.

OCC new campus construction

Construction on the new OCC campus began last week and is moving along nicely. The new campus will be located only 2 miles from the current campus.  The new facilty will provide for additional classrooms, offices and admissions area. The classrooms will incorporate technology for audio/video presentation to comply with the new curriculum enhancements being developed and required by NAHETS, of which OCC is a premier member.