Career and Technology Center boasts high placement rate

With its training in fields from health care to culinary arts and computer programming, the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center, in conjunction with its education partners, boasted a nearly 90 percent job placement rate last year.

Frank Ward poses inside the workshop Wednesday at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center. Ward is studying electrical trades. (Laura Simon)

Director Rich Payne said the mission of the center, which serves secondary, community college-age and adult students, is to try to meet the workforce demands of the region, whether it's in manufacturing, business or health care. With high school and adult students coming through its doors, the center averages about 1,500 students a day. This also includes students in the Cape Girardeau Partnership for Higher Education, which includes Southeast Missouri State University, Three Rivers College in Poplar Bluff, Mo., and Mineral Area College in Park Hills, Mo.

The center also receives students from 12 high schools across the region, assistant director Kristy Unger said. There are numerous ways students can pursue postsecondary education through the career and technology center, and it also offers a variety of personal enrichment courses from muffins made easy to yoga, she said.

"A two-year degree and/or a certificate program in a technical area is a quicker return on students' investment, and it will allow them to move into the workforce much faster," Payne said. Even during bad economic times, the service industry, such as those who fix cars or heaters, still are needed.

He added that Cape Girardeau also features a "huge medical sector," which always needs workers.

Last year, the center's placement rate was 89.84 percent, Payne said.

"Our students get placed. Our students do a good job. I think we've done a good job of matching what employers need and what we train students for," Payne said.

Assistant director Libby Guilliams said the facility's overall placement rate stays pretty constant, although different programs will have their ups and downs, depending on what's going on in various industries.

Enrollment has grown, especially during the last five years, Guilliams said.

"That may have to do with folks looking for a lower-cost, faster path to a … job versus maybe doing a four-year institution or your more traditional education route," she said. "That's … the thing the economy has triggered."

And she expects the trend to continue. In response, programming has expanded. The practical nursing program has seen an increase of about 12 students a year, and it gets more than 300 applicants for 56 spots.

Taylor Lukefahr, who is training to be a certified nursing assistant, began her studies when she was in high school and is now in the intensive, 10-week adult program.

"I know that a lot of people who have nursing jobs keep them. They don't worry about having a job. And wherever I go, if I move, I'll have a job, and I want to help people," said Lukefahr, a 2013 Cape Girardeau Central High School graduate.

She said the program is difficult, but in the end, it will mean getting a job she wants.

"I like coming here. I feel like I'm getting a good education. As an adult, you have a little more freedom than a secondary student, but you also aren't in class as long as a secondary student," Lukefahr said. "You have to want to be here. I have to be motivated to do it."

Lukefahr would like to work for a nursing home, and ultimately, earn a registered nurse designation.

CNAs take vital signs and assist with bathing and feeding, "just whatever the RN needs us to do." Lukefahr will start clinicals Sept. 12, which is also her 19th birthday.

"I'm kind of nervous to do the hands on. I don't want to mess up," Lukefahr said. Her testing to be certified is Oct. 11 and 12.

Frank Ward, who was laid off from his pharmaceutical sales job with Johnson & Johnson, is studying electrical trades to become an industrial commercial electrician. With his training, he'll also be able to handle residential electrical work. Ward is in his second year of a two-year program and plans to graduate in May.

Ward earned a business degree and an education degree from Southeast and worked in St. Louis for more than 25 years, coming out of the health-care industry in 2007, around the time the job market tanked.

"I'm looking forward to quickly completing the program," Ward said. "Here, you get your certification, but being in the MAC [Mineral Area College] program, I'll get a two-year degree in electrical technology."

Ward chose the trade program here after researching it and finding it was a good value for a quality education. Having relatives who are electricians in various sectors, Ward said he thought he knew about the trade.

"As I got in, I realized in my first year what I didn't know," he said. "… I'm pretty impressed with a lot of the stuff they share with the students, but it requires commitment."

At 51, Ward said he's working toward the last half of his career. In his first year, he got a position at Cape Electric Supply Co.

"I want to close it out strong, and I think I can do that by being a very good electrician," he said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address:

1080 S. Silver Springs Road, Cape Girardeau, Mo.