{"id":2294,"date":"2017-11-28T17:55:15","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T17:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/?p=2294"},"modified":"2017-11-28T17:55:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T17:55:15","slug":"texas-state-representative-visits-tstc-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/?p=2294","title":{"rendered":"Texas State Representative Visits TSTC Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

(WACO) – State Rep. and House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Zerwas, R-Richmond, along with officials from Educate Texas and the Texas Association of Manufacturers, visited the Texas State Technical College campus Monday, November 27.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Educate Texas, a catalyst for large-scale education systems change, has partnered with public and private educational entities to improve public and higher education systems in Texas. The goal of the visit was for the groups involved to shine a light on the types of education being offered at TSTC.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThese organizations asked if they could host a tour on our campus for Rep. John Zerwas so that he could get a firsthand experience with the type of education and opportunities that TSTC produces,\u201d said Roger Miller, TSTC vice chancellor and chief government affairs officer. \u201cWe were somewhat of a co-host, but this was actually the idea of Educate Texas, the Texas Association of Manufacturers and the Texas Business Leadership Council.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Zerwas serves the citizens of Texas House District 28, which includes Fort Bend County, where TSTC operates its newest campus. In the 84th Legislative Session, he also served as Chairman of the House Committee on Higher Education. Zerwas said the visit to Waco helped him realize the breadth of opportunities TSTC can offer.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is where it all began, so this is a great opportunity to see where the program was born and to see what it\u2019s become since then,\u201d Zerwas said. \u201cThe Fort Bend campus, since it just started, has a limited number of programs they can offer. Here at the oldest campus, they have an enormous number of job skills training opportunities. I found each one of them interesting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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TSTC Chancellor Mike Reeser said it’s important that people see the value of the programs offered at TSTC.<\/span><\/p>\n

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“A lot of times technical education is seen as a consolation prize,” Reeser said. “The programs we offer here are more than that. Who wouldn’t want to be an air traffic controller? Corporate America is finally beginning to talk to students about job opportunities in careers like these.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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The tour showed visitors a look at the Aerospace, Instrumentation, Electrical Power & Controls, Precision Machining and Welding programs. Several instructors pressed the significance of the skills gap, a shortage of middle-skilled workers to fill open positions.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re seeing the greatest shortage of commercial pilots since the 1950s,\u201d said TSTC Transportation Division Director Carson Pearce. \u201cThere are 617,000 jobs available, and that doesn\u2019t include aviation maintenance technicians. We can get a student in and season them in two years, but as fast as we can do that isn\u2019t fast enough to fill the positions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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TSTC Precision Machining instructor George Love shared the same sentiments.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cMy biggest burden right now is that I\u2019m letting 60 to 70 jobs go unfilled every semester,\u201d Love said. \u201cIt\u2019s a weight on my shoulders. If I can provide an extra 60 to 70 students, I could meet the needs I know about in the state of Texas right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Zerwas hopes TSTC\u2019s high-quality graduates can help beat the stigma around technical education and lessen the skills gap.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cMore of these graduates being percolated through communities will get people asking, \u2018How did you get there?\u2019 And they\u2019ll say, \u2018Well I started at TSTC,\u2019 and it gave them a great start. There are lots of ways and efforts to communicate this down to the high schools, and it\u2019s very important. Our future is highly vested in cranking out that highly skilled workforce.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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For more information on TSTC, visit tstc.edu.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(WACO) – State Rep. and House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Zerwas, R-Richmond, along with officials from Educate Texas and the Texas Association of Manufacturers, visited the Texas State Technical College campus Monday, November 27. Educate Texas, a catalyst for large-scale education systems change, has partnered with public and private educational entities to improve public and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-waco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2296,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions\/2296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.tstc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}