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By: Chip Minty The Journal Record September 15, 2022 0

Supplying the aerospace industry with a trained workforce has become a priority as CareerTech supports Oklahoma’s second-largest industry.  (Courtesy photo)

As interim state director of Oklahoma’s Career and Technology Education system, Lee Denney’s job is to keep her ear to the ground.

These days, she’s hearing a billion-dollar broadband freight train rumbling across the country with a federal mandate to fill massive gaps of geography with internet connectivity to benefit unserved and underserved communities.

In response to the clamor, Denney met with Oklahoma legislators on Tuesday with a simple message: “We’re your guy.”

President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed last year with more than $42 billion to build broadband network facilities in places lacking in internet nationwide.

Private companies will soon be springing up across Oklahoma, digging trenches, erecting utility poles, and stringing the fiber-optic lines that will link town and country to the information superhighway.

Those firms will need thousands of workers, and Denney said Oklahoma’s CareerTech system is perfectly suited to train them.

Denney, a former member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, said Tuesday’s meeting was more of a tap on the shoulder to let lawmakers know a wave of demand was on the horizon for a new workforce with a specific set of skills. She told them CareerTech would need funding for all the special equipment necessary to bring workers up to speed.

Even though she’s an interim director, Denney has been around CareerTech long enough to know the system is anything but static. There are 29 technology centers and 59 campuses across the state, and all of them are accustomed to fire drills.

CareerTech has a critical niche in the state’s education system, Denney said.

“When it comes to workforce development in Oklahoma, CareerTech is always involved in early conversations,” she said.

Another workforce emergency involves a nursing shortage aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of Oklahoma nurses left the field due to stress and fatigue from months of long hours providing critical care to patients. CareerTech responded with a curriculum that fast-tracked a stream of licensed practical nurses into Oklahoma’s medical community where they found not only jobs but new possibilities to continue training to become registered nurses or licensed physician assistants.

Next to oil and natural gas production, aerospace is Oklahoma’s second-largest industry, and it continues to grow. If state companies are to maintain their competitive edge, they will need a ready workforce. That’s why CareerTech is launching a series of 40 short videos to help recruit students into training programs that include aircraft maintenance, unmanned aerial systems, general aviation, engineering and more. And, if students want to learn how to fly, CareerTech has 11 programs for that too.

Working alongside Oklahoma’s public schools, colleges, and universities, CareerTech has grown from its origins as a network of vocational technical schools to a compendium of career fields ranging from electrical trades and anything automotive to accounting, marketing, cybersecurity, firefighting, medical imaging, web design and dozens more.

“Oklahoma’s CareerTech system is recognized across the nation as a model for other states to follow,” said Russell Ray, chief communications and marketing officer. “CareerTech has a long-running reputation as a pioneer in education, and that continues.”

There is good reason for that, he said.

CareerTech draws tens of thousands of students from nearly 400 high schools across the state, and it also serves large populations of adult students for training in new career fields or for enhanced training.

Since the pandemic, the system has seen a sharp jump in enrollment, Ray said.

Enrollment increased to nearly 447,000 students in fiscal year 2022, he said. That’s a significant jump compared to fiscal year 2021, when enrollment was a little more than 426,000.

In fiscal year 2022, 42% of Oklahoma’s ninth through 12th grade students were enrolled in CareerTech classes, Ray said.

“And that year, the system had a 91% job placement rate, which means nearly all CareerTech graduates found employment, entered the military or continued their education,” he said.

Tagged with: CareerTech Lee Denney Oklahoma Legislature Oklahoma’s Career and Technology Education

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