`MR. VO-TECH'; RETIRING DIRECTOR TAKES PRIDE IN THE PRODUCT: STUDENTS

Gary Gilbert believes his employees turn out a fine product: students trained to do jobs employers need done.

Gilbert, director of the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational Technical School, has been instrumental in transforming students into workers since 1965.

But after 27 years, Gilbert has resigned his post, effective June 30. Harold Tilley, current director of adult education, has been named the new director.

A retirement dinner for Gilbert is planned May 15 at the A.C. Brase Arena Building. Reservations can be made by contacting to vocational school.

When Gilbert came to Cape Girardeau to start a vocational school, Cape Girardeau offered auto mechanics and cooperative education (COE) to a handful of high school students.

Today more than 400 high school students from eight area schools attend the school.

"When I started, less than 100 adults were involved in adult education," Gilbert recalled. "They would meet in the auditorium and decide what they would like to take."

Today, the school serves 9,400 adult learners annually.

Gilbert said vocational education in Cape Girardeau had its share of skeptics in the beginning.

"There was a group of people who really wanted the school started," he said. "But a lot of people said it would never work. In a college town, vocational education was not going to make it.

"I think people now realize that college and vocational education need to work together. We need a lot of options for students and adults these days."

In 1963 the federal government approved a vocational educational act, which provided the necessary funds for the vocational school. Gilbert used the funds to launch the vocational education program here in 1965.

"I knew there was an awful lot of interest locally and in the nation for electronics," he said. "And with the defense at that time, there was a need for drafting and design. The secretarial program was also started that first year. We started with that nucleus and started asking questions.

"I spent a tremendous amount of time talking to businesses about what they needed. We were interested in what type of individual they wanted to employ. We wanted to be sure if we started a program, they would be interested in the type of product we put out."

And almost immediately, Gilbert began planning a vocational school building. "I lay awake at night thinking they will run me out of town. We'll have this big building and no students."

But when the school opened, it was overflowing. Seven years later, a two-story addition was built, more than doubling the size of the facility.

"The thing that really pushed us over the top was adult education," Gilbert said. "We found the businesses needed training. Procter & Gamble moved in about that time, and it all started from there."

The school has generated some ardent supporters in the community. Among Gary Gilbert's fans is Karen Hendrickson.

Hendrickson was founding director of the Cape Girardeau Area School of Practical Nursing at the vocational school. She now works as assistant administrator at Southeast Missouri Hospital.

"It was Gary Gilbert's vision that there would be a great need for nurses to be prepared at the technical level in order to meet the patient-care needs of this community," she said.

"He has contributed significantly to the educational level of the young people in the community as well as the adult learners. He felt very strongly that there are great numbers of individuals who are not college bound but who desire vocational education and training.

"I have always known him to be far sighted and interested in addressing the employment needs of the community," Hendrickson said. "At the same time, he is concerned with developing good citizens as well as persons with appropriate skills to meet the industrial needs.

"I have found him to be a mentor certainly an educational leader who very freely shared his

knowledge and he has always worked very diligently to develop his faculty and his students. He's been involved in the community on advisory councils and he has always been very quick to make sure persons are aware of what vocational education can do."

That's pretty high praise for a former Jackson High School basketball star called "Sonny" Gilbert.

He also played basketball while attending Southeast Missouri State University. He then joined the Marine Corps, but "really wanted to teach and coach."

After leaving the service, he took a teaching and coaching job at Malden, where he was assistant football coach under former Southeast Missouri State University president Bill Stacy, who was the Malden football coach at that time.

While working on his master's degree, Gilbert wrote a research paper proposing that the school district use buildings from the closed Malden Air Base to house a trade school.

"My superintendent saw the papers and said, `Let's do it,'" he said.

Gilbert operated his brainchild for four years before coming to Cape Girardeau.

Gene Huckstep, now county commissioner, was a member of the Cape Girardeau School District Board of Education that brought Gilbert to the city.

"He is Mr. Vo-Tech of Cape Girardeau, no doubt," Huckstep said. "If I ever made a smart move, it was recommending Gary. It took the right person to get the school organized and going. That person was Gary."

Huckstep said: "The one thing I always did advocate was vocational education. Vo-tech was starting to catch fire across the country at that time," he said.

The school board directed Huckstep to look at different programs. "I went with (then superintendent) Charlie House to look at Malden. The director down there was Gary Gilbert.

"We found that for very minimal dollars, he had a good program," Huckstep said. "The staff members were very high on praise for him."

On the way out the door, Huckstep asked Gilbert if he would be interested in working in Cape Girardeau. That was 1964.

"He's done an excellent job," Huckstep said. "It is really through his efforts that the program really took off. Where I'm really proud of Gary is in the adult education field. That program is tremendous.

"He always seemed to recruit good staff, and that is always an asset," Huckstep said.

But Gilbert is quick to pass off credit for the school's successes to others. Gilbert said he has worked with an excellent staff over the years.

"I have had some great people to work with and together we made something of this school," he said. "We have had good cooperation all through the years with all the sending schools, the superintendents, principals and counselors. We were able to work together and get something accomplished."

He conceded that there have been differences of opinion over the years among people involved with vocational education. "But we all wanted what is best for the community and the students we were trying to get trained," he added.

Gilbert started his job talking to employers about what they needed, a successful formula he still adheres to. Subsequently, an assistant director was added at the school for the expressed purpose of dealing with businesses.

The school provides "customized" training for many local industries and businesses. Also, 180 employers and workers serve on advisory committees for each program offered at the school.

"We need their input about new technology and the things we need to throw out," Gilbert said. "We need them not to be a rubber stamp committee, but rather to look at our program from their perspective out in the field."

Keeping in touch with changes in the workplace has helped the vocational school excel over the years.

Gilbert also credited the early and continued use of computer technology for much of the program's success, although buying the district's first $18,000 computer wasn't easy.

"We got in on the ground floor with computers," he said. "The board tied 3-3 at first so we could not buy it." A year later, in 1975, the school board authorized the computer purchase.

"We have gone through five or six generations of computers since than," Gilbert said. "If we wouldn't have computers, we would be out of business. We can't offer enough computer classes for adults."

Just a few years ago the school added an assessment component to the school, funded completely through federal and state grants.

"People have a great need to be retrained," Gilbert said. "But first they need to be evaluated for what they might want to get into and how much training they might need."

At 59, Gilbert said although he will "step aside" and let someone else take the reigns at the vocational school, he won't really retire.

"We've changed and rolled with the punches, but there are so many changes on the horizon," he said. "I felt it was time to step aside and let someone younger take over. I don't want to see the school ever get behind.

"But I don't feel I'll ever retire fully."

Gilbert wants to travel and participate in Civil War reenactments. Also, he and his wife are both avid runners and plan to compete in a race up Pike's Peak.

He said he feels pride in the fact that people in the Cape Girardeau area were able to work together to establish a school that meets the community's needs.

"We get a lot of students who, after they graduate, come back as adults to visit," he added. "It's interesting to see how they have grown and how vocational education has helped them become successful. That's our product."