REGIONAL REPORT : Colleges Go to Employers With Custom Classes

The sexually transmitted disease clinic at the San Diego County Department of Health needed a specialist to train investigators in the latest blood-drawing techniques for detecting syphilis.

Unocal Corp. needed an expert to teach emergency rescue skills to crew members stationed aboard an oil platform off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Officials at an Irvine dental manufacturing plant wanted to improve their employees’ fluency in English and math.

All three found what they were looking for through their local California Community College districts. Across Southern California, businesses and governmental agencies are turning to the state community college system for instruction tailor-made to fit their employees’ needs.

For a fee, many community colleges will devise a specialized course and dispatch instructors to the work site--often for less than it would cost a business or government agency to conduct its own training programs or hire private consultants. The college makes a profit that can be channeled to traditional academic programs that the state no longer will fund because of budget cutbacks.

Although many California community colleges have offered off-campus contract training for almost a decade, officials are becoming more aggressive in their efforts to market the program to the business community.

“It has taken some of the (problems) in the economy for the local businesses to look harder at their training and retraining needs and begin to see the community colleges in a different light,” said Barbara Hollowell, Southern California consultant for California community colleges. “It used to just be the ‘JC’ down the street that maybe their kid went to.”

That perception is changing.

Employers in the private and government sectors are tapping into the educational system’s wealth of expertise for courses ranging from basic reading and arithmetic to the latest developments in aerospace technology.

“Community colleges have a lot of instructors that have worked in the private sector and they have skills that can be applied to particular industries,” said Bill Plaster, Western regional director for the National Business Alliance. “It’s also less expensive for businesses than doing it in-house because they don’t have to maintain a long-term training and development staff. They can just bring in the college instructors to do a bang-up job for a few weeks and then they go back to campus.”

Michael Harkness, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, did just that for Unocal under a program established through Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria.

For a $3,000 fee, the part-time instructor at Allan Hancock College hopped a helicopter to a remote oil platform in the Santa Barbara Channel to instruct 60 drillers and riggers in “high angle” and fire rescue techniques.

During two 10-hour training sessions in May, the battalion chief simulated worst-case scenarios that could arise on the platform. A crew member dangling helplessly from a 120-foot drilling rig. A fire burning uncontrollably in the middle of the night. Injured crew members in need of medical attention when the nearest onshore assistance is hours away.

“These folks can’t just call 911 and get the fire department,” Harkness said. “They often have to handle emergencies with their own crews.”

Elsewhere, San Diego County public health officials turned to their community college district a year ago in search of a specialist in venipuncture--more commonly known as blood-drawing.

For $650, nursing instructors from the San Diego Community College District held a four-day seminar for a dozen disease control investigators. The sessions included instruction on the use of syringes and safety precautions, with particular attention to protecting health workers. “The old way of drawing blood is out because if you get a needle stick now, you have to worry about whether the person is HIV positive,” said Bill Ellis, supervising communicable disease investigator. “We wanted to make sure we were up on the latest technology in proper needle care.

“It was very beneficial because you can say ‘use needle safety’ but what does that really mean?” Ellis said. “This type of class gives you added knowledge and competence.”

Community colleges have been offering contract training for businesses since the early 1980s. However, in recent years, officials have more actively publicized the programs. Now, businesses can dial an 800 number for referrals.

These community outreach efforts appear to be paying off. In the Los Angeles Community College District, the largest in the state, officials expect to sign $1 million in training contracts before the year ends. Meanwhile, the substantially smaller Riverside Community College District, which logged $18,000 in contract business five years ago, has seen that amount increase eightfold, said Brenda Davis, dean of grants and contract education for the district.

The Riverside district’s most lucrative contract is a $91,000 educational program with the California Rehabilitation Department for training prison employees. “I think there is a basic philosophy in this country right now that a lot of dollars have gone into the institution of public education,” Davis said. “So why not use a system that is already in place to retrain the work force and keep it up to date?”

Facing a statewide shortfall of $80 million, community college officials are hard-pressed for funds to support the educational needs of 1.5 million students in the 107-college system. Under contract training, businesses are anteing up from $90 to $140 per class hour, depending on the program requested.

The fee structure varies from an hourly rate to a flat charge per class. Courses range from a four-hour class on blueprint reading to one of the largest statewide contracts--a San Diego Community College District agreement with Pacific Bell to provide on-the-job associate degrees for their employees.

Community college officials downplay the economic advantages of contract training, choosing instead to focus on the community benefits.

“It’s not a profit-making venture for the colleges. It’s a way to offer (other) services and have the cost paid for by the users with no cost to the taxpayers,” said Ernie Leach, deputy chancellor for California Community Colleges. “There’s some real economic urgency to the work that we do, not only to preserve the jobs of employees but to preserve basic manufacturing in the state of California.”

Increasingly, businesses are drawing upon community colleges to teach skills necessitated by the increasing demands of the computer age. While jobs in heavy industry are on the decline, technology is creating new middle-level and high-level positions that require more skill and training. Because 80% of the work force for the year 2000 is already on the job, many of these employees will be called upon to fill the new, highly skilled positions of the future.

“A typical job may require an average worker to be able to read between the sixth- and eighth-grade level,” Plaster said. “But some of the new computers are requiring an upgrade to the 14th or 16th level.”

Since April, more than 100 parts suppliers to the aerospace industry have enlisted El Camino Community College in Torrance to help improve their efficiency through an employee teamwork program known as “total quality management.” Many American companies are adopting the new corporate philosophy, borrowed from the Japanese.

“It’s really a change in the culture of the organization that focuses on the customers’ satisfaction,” said Susan Cotler, dean of industry and technology at El Camino College. “Some major companies are establishing standards that companies that do business with them have to incorporate total quality management or they will no longer be their suppliers.”

At West Los Angeles Community College in Culver City, officials specialize in training unemployed aerospace workers for jobs in the hazardous materials industry.

“With the increasing regulations for the handling of hazardous materials there is a need for people to be trained in that field,” said Paul Stansbury, director of the office of economic development. “With all of the people laid off from the aerospace industry, we’re looking to retrain them for those jobs.”

However, in an ethnically diverse area such as Southern California, one of the most popular requests is for classes in English as a second language.

Several months ago, officials at 3M Dental Products in Irvine contacted the Coast Community College District to create a basic math and English course for its employees. All 200 workers were given a standardized test, then 50% were enrolled in one-year programs for reading, writing and arithmetic.

“We were surprised at the range, from very high to very low,” said Jim Wilson, training and development manager for the company. “A lot of people are good at math, but imagine if you went to Vietnam and had to take their math test--with ‘Sally went to the store to buy a bunch of apples,’ some people have trouble understanding the words.”

After three months, the average reading levels of employees enrolled in the community college course have increased by two grade levels, Wilson said.

Interestingly, the training also has had an unexpected side benefit.

“It has helped to manage cultural diversity,” Wilson said. “Whereas different minorities might sit at different tables at lunchtime, this has brought people together.”