Thursday, February 26, 2026
Local partnership drives safety, success in Pierce County
For the Pierce County Highway Department, training is not about checking a box. It is about safety, confidence, and ensuring employees are prepared for real-world situations.
That is why the department partners with Chippewa Valley Technical College Workforce Solutions and Continuing Education to upskill employees across multiple areas, including CDL licensing, MSHA training, and annual refreshers.
“We first started working with Chippewa Valley Technical College with our annual MSHA refresher meeting,” said Chad Johnson, Highway Commissioner for the Pierce County Highway Department. “We like to keep it specific to our department and cover topics that are relevant to the daily work that our people do.”
Pierce County Highway is responsible for maintaining county roads and Wisconsin’s state highway system, a unique responsibility that also includes in-house construction, bridge work, equipment maintenance, and active mining operations. Because of that scope, training needs are specialized and highly regulated.
“The training requirements for MSHA are pretty strict,” Johnson said. “To us, the training is not just a box we want to check. We want the employees to gain confidence, be safe, and gain knowledge.”
CVTC instructors work closely with the department’s safety committee to develop sessions tailored to their operation. Johnson says that the relationship makes a difference.
“It’s not just a canned presentation,” he said. “They know our operation enough that they can personalize it to us. It’s a really good relationship that we have with them.”
That personalization shows up in employee engagement. Johnson noted that even during long training days, attention stays high.
“No one’s ever bored in their session, and no one’s ever overwhelmed in their session,” he said.
The impact of the training has extended beyond the classroom. Johnson shared a real-life example after a firefighting session led by CVTC instructors.
“From Matt and Rich’s session on firefighting at our MSHA refresher meeting, myself and a couple other employees were able to extinguish a cornfield fire using their extinguisher training that they gave us,” Johnson said. “It’s not hypothetical training. It’s real world training that you never know when you’re going to need.”
For Shop Superintendent Dave McPherson, CVTC’s CDL training has been especially valuable in supporting hiring and onboarding.
“Partnering with CVTC has helped us with our onboarding needs with CDLs here at the Pierce County Highway Department,” McPherson said. “Before, we were kind of passing up on potentially good employee hires because they didn’t have CDLs.”
He also credits CVTC instructors for creating a supportive learning environment.
“They always take the time to make sure that people are comfortable,” McPherson said. “They’ve taken extra time for guys that have needed it and make sure that everybody’s ready to go.”
Johnson summed up the partnership simply.
“Working with CVTC has helped us maintain cost-effective training and given us an option that’s fairly local to us, and it’s made our training program easy to accomplish,” he said. “If I had to sum up my experience in one word, it would be satisfying.”
