Hello, 

As president of Chippewa Valley Technical College, I’ve met with many groups, service clubs, boards both elected and corporate, business and industry representatives, and citizens. It’s a great part of the job. Everyone I meet appreciates the education CVTC provides and the impact that education has on our communities. Many of you expressed a desire for more information about CVTC.

This is only our second edition and I’m happy to report that we had an encouraging reaction to the first edition.

We are trying to build community, to let you know of some of the people involved, and some of the work we’re doing to fulfill the mission given to us nearly 100 years ago. We are long established, but we are always changing. And to make the best possible changes, we need to hear from you. So if you have a topic you would like covered please comment to cjohnson@cvtc.edu. 

Bruce A. Barker
President

Honored Technoentrepreneur Mike Strand is
CVTC Grad

Mike Strand, founder of StrandWare and now StrandVision, is a 1982 data processing graduate and a 1984 electronics graduate of CVTC.

The CVTC grad took StrandWare to annual sales in excess of $2 million before selling the company. His latest venture, StrandVision, marks his interest in the internet. The firm networks plasma screen monitors providing information from news to weather to in-house announcements for clients in business, education and the public sector.

All of Mike and Carmen Strand’s children have attended or are attending CVTC. This past March, CVTC awarded him the prestigious Distinguished Alumni Award.

Twice Strand has also been awarded the Eau Claire Area Economic Development Corporation’s annual business plan contest top honor. And in 2005, Strand took top honors in the Governor’s Business Plan contest!

The Boyceville native and former employee of Seymour Cray was once asked by the supercomputer great to create an original design for a gallium arsenide chip, an astonishing endorsement of the then recent CVTC graduate.

Veteran Newsman Calls CVTC Grads “Remarkable and Impressive”

CVTC Commencement speaker John Hoffland, news director at WEAU TV 13 in Eau Claire for 23 years, told of one recent applicant to his station who said, “Looking for work was too much work.”  The remark of the hapless applicant contrasted sharply with the positive message of student commencement speaker Bettyann Nowak of Spooner, who told her fellow grads that “Life is a dance. Life is an attitude.” See Bettyann’s video elsewhere.

“Never do anything you’ll later regret and always do something that will move you forward,” the newsman said.

We sadly append the above story with our condolences to John’s family.  John’s passing is keenly felt by many at CVTC.  What a newsman!  What a dad and husband!  What a guy!

Wood Technics Home in River Falls Snapped Up 

Each year Wood Technics students in Eau Claire and River Falls build a home. It’s an open air laboratory and the best way to learn, says Joe Cook, department head and instructor.

The CVTC homes have developed a reputation for quality and the rapid sale of the River Falls property at 884 Fairchild Drive this spring is strong evidence of that. With their superior skills there’s no doubt that CVTC Wood Technics grads contributed to the equity and wealth of the region during the past housing boom. And it might also be true that the lesser severity of the housing decline in west-central Wisconsin is attributable in part to the Wood Technics program!

What’s hot now in residential construction is Green-Built. Energy saving construction techniques require attention to detail, Cook says. But the gains are remarkable. The instructor says 2,000-square-foot homes can now be built that incur annual heating costs of $500.

CVTC Names Kleven to Manage River Falls Campus 

John Kleven, a 1995 marketing graduate of Chippewa Valley Technical College, has been named to manage the technical college’s River Falls campus.

Kleven has been an interim manager at the campus since August 2008. Kleven’s new status begins in July.

Kleven has strong business and sales skills, according to CVTC President Bruce Barker. That’s what is needed in the fast-growing metro counties of Pierce and St. Croix as well as Pepin county, the CVTC president said.

Kleven, an Eau Claire native, is also a 2005 University of Wisconsin-Stout graduate in marketing education. He is pursuing a graduate degree there.
From the fall of 2006 to the spring of 2008, Kleven taught marketing at CVTC. Prior to that, in the 2005-2006 academic year, Kleven taught marketing at Wayzata High School in Minnesota.

Kleven says his responsibilities include administration of the River Falls campus with its five associate degree programs, and a popular university transfer program.
CVTC in River Falls offers an associate degree in nursing leading to registered nurse licensure, and administrative assistant, business management, criminal justice and wood technics majors.
Kleven’s other responsibilities will include representing the offerings of the college to business and industry.

“First and foremost, I see a great need to help the current and incumbent workforce acquire all the skills they need to advance the productivity of their employers,” Kleven said. “And I want to become an advocate for all the communities this campus serves,” he said.

Keys 
Leads 
Improvements 
for 
Students

Margo Keys, vice president of Student Services, 
is in front of a comprehensive effort to enhance 
student enrollment, registration and other 
processes. She details the effort here.

Meet
the 
New 
CVTC 
Student 
Ambassador

Bettyann Nowak is CVTC's 
student ambassador for the 
coming year.  Nowak graduated 
in marketing this past spring and 
spoke at commencement.  She 
describes some of her student 
experiences here.

CVTC Board Members Are Appointed by Elected Officials, Undergo
Open Process

As one of the 16 colleges of the Wisconsin Technical College System, CVTC files a plan of representation describing the process of board membership and selection.

Letters, public notice and news releases are distributed to create interest in application. Applicants must complete a process by an announced date.

Here’s the process in brief: Prospective applicants obtain the correct forms and criteria from CVTC, a website is available for this purpose, though all materials can be requested by phone or in writing. The completed application and two letters of recommendation must be on file at CVTC by a specified date. Applicants must attend a public hearing, presided over by the elected chairpersons of the counties served by CVTC. At the public hearing, in open session, identical questions are asked of each applicant in turn. Following the public hearing, a meeting is held where new Board members are appointed and announced. All appointments must be approved by the Wisconsin Technical College System State Board.

Although CVTC provides clerical support to the process, it is the elected officials from the respective counties who choose all members. No CVTC employee, as provided by state law, can exert influence on the selection process.
That’s why the CVTC Board is independent-minded and accountable to the electorate.   

Profiles of New CVTC Board Trustees

Colleen Bates

In 1999, Colleen Bates was honored by the National Association of Social Workers with the Wisconsin Advocacy Award as “Public Citizen of the Year.” The honor might be the most descriptive of the dozen she has received in a long career of public service.

Bates will join the CVTC Board as an elected official. She has served District 12 on the Eau Claire County Board since 1982.

Now retired, Bates managed the P.J. Bates Medical Clinic from 1955 to 1993. Her memberships are impressively diverse. Here is an arbitrary sampling: She was instrumental in forming a special drug court in 2004 for Eau Claire County and the following year helped establish a mental health court. Bates has done extensive work with the Wisconsin Counties Association. She was a member of the steering committee for the Beacon House and a 20-year-plus board member of the Chippewa Valley Symphony. She is a former president of the latter. Bates taught Sunday School for 14 years at a Methodist church where she was a member from 1933 to 2008.

In her application for membership on the CVTC Board, Bates wrote, “CVTC has the flexibility to meet the ever-changing needs of our current employers, and CVTC has demonstrated the vision to strategically plan for the 21st Century workforce."

Cheryl Gullicksrud

Rising through the Mondovi School District, Cheryl Gullicksrud became the District Administrator in 2005.

The magna cum laude graduate of UW- Eau Claire in business education holds a master’s in Educational Administration from Winona State. She has done graduate work at Viterbo University, UW-Eau Claire and Winona State.

Gullicksrud, prior to the chief executive job in Mondovi, was a principal and assessment coordinator, a business education teacher and yearbook advisor, and a special projects coordinator for the Mondovi district. She also served as a cluster coordinator for a group of nearby school districts and before that began a career in education as a substitute teacher.

In both 1999 and 1992, Gullicksrud was awarded the Excellence in Education Teacher Award, an honor for which she was selected by two high school seniors who deemed her highly influential in their lives.

In applying for CVTC Board membership, she wrote that as the “wife of a dairy farmer and member of several community organizations, I have had many opportunities to learn about the development and training needs of our region.” 
 

Gary Mitchell

Twice in his life while working full-time, Gary Mitchell has begun work on academic degrees.

After serving his country in the USN for six years as a submariner, he went to work for a defense contractor in metro Washington D.C. At the same time he attended Park University studying management full-time evenings. He completed the degree and knows the rigors the adult student faces.

After moving home to Owen-Withee, because he and wife Taryn “appreciated the value of a small town and school environment,” Mitchell earned an MBA from UW Eau Claire.
He is the owner and broker of O-W Realty, and past president of the Vllage of Withee. Recently Mitchell earned an initial educator license with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction enabling him to substitute and teach at Owen-Withee High School.

Whether village president or small businessmen, Mitchell has become accustomed to wearing a lot of hats and brings that perspective to the CVTC Board. It’s a breadth that also includes experience as a volunteer fire fighter, economic developer and manufacturing shift manager. He lists a dozen professional associations in his application for membership on the CVTC Board.

Balancing CVTC ‘s sources of revenue and developing a curriculum driven by business and industry are efforts that are aided by an experienced board, he wrote. “We need an experienced and committed board.”

Gwen Southard-Schuppel

More than once in her application materials for CVTC Board membership, Gwen Southard-Schuppel’s sense of humor is noted or praised! No board fails to appreciate such a quality.
Southard-Schuppel is the Business Development manager for the Eau Claire Area Economic Development Corporation. Her responsibilities include working with entrepreneurs on ideas and products that relate to the location of new business and the location of new jobs.

Prior to her current position, Southard-Schuppel managed projects and product sales for PESI, an Eau Claire provider of continuing education for various professionals. She also worked as a recruiter for StratSource Strategic Outsourcing Corporation, and as a seminar planner for Lorman Education Services.

Southard-Schuppel is a UW-Eau Claire graduate in organizational communications and public relations. Her community involvement includes chairmanship of the Lakeshore Elementary Teacher Appreciation PTO Committee, church choir and confirmation mentor, and Junior Achievement.

In her application for CVTC Board membership, Southard-Schuppel wrote that “I would like to help direct and enhance the educational opportunities available for the area’s high school graduates and nontraditional students through CVTC.”

Newsletter Distribution: Bev Hilton and Candy Johnson