Campus update

 

Wow did January ever fly by.  We took a delegation from campus to Oman to meet with RAFO (Royal Air Force of Oman). We have been providing training for their Simulator Maintenance Techs for a few years now and it was time to visit their Sim sites and make sure we are providing quality training. They also wanted to meet with us about additional training in vehicle maintenance. Cory Mitzel (Sim Tech Faculty), Randy Olson (Auto Tech Faculty), Nicole Claussen (International Program Coordinator) and I traveled to Oman and visited RAFO Bases in Muscat, Mussanah, Thumrait and Salalah. Cory got a chance to see nearly all of the 30+ techs he has trained for RAFO and a chance to try out the simulators that they maintain.

The trip was very successful. RAFO is pleased with our training and plans to send more students to be trained as Sim Techs.

They are also very interested in sending some of their special vehicle techs to get training from our Auto Tech program. We are still working on the content and duration of this potential training, but are excited about the prospects.



Wind Turbine Update

Construction has been complete for several weeks. We will be making the final interconnection to Ottertail and the Campus next week and GE will be onsite to commission the turbine. We hope to have the turbine operational by mid February. We are excited to complete this huge project.


Legislative Update

The Governor included our expansion of the Erlandson Technical Center in his proposed budget and specifically mentioned the project in his address. I testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee and Senate Education Committee and both groups asked good questions and seemed supportive of our project.  Our local legislators have been hard at work making contacts with other legislators and getting support for our project.   We are going to keep working hard on this until the end of the session and we are included in the final budget!