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(upbeat music) - Hello, everyone.

I'm Rameca Vincent Leary and welcome to this edition of Pensacola State Today.

Workforce programs are in high demand.

In fact, attaining the necessary training may not take as long as you think.

At Pensacola State College will be with you every step of the way from the classroom experience to fulfilling your dreams in the workforce.

The possibilities are endless.

So during this segment, we'll focus on our new truck driver training facility to discuss this further.

I'm happy to welcome Dr. Ed Meadows, president of Pensacola State College and Michael Listau, director of Workforce Education.

Welcome to both of you.

- Thank you.

- As we know, Dr. Meadows is a huge truck driver shortage all around.

So for you, I know this groundbreaking that we had in September had a little bit of extra meaning, didn't it.

- Certainly Dr. Leary you know, it takes a lot of different, good things coming together to create a facility like this.

And so we had a large number of partners that helped us achieve the dream of being in the industrial park as the industrial tenant.

- Living the dream.

- So we're very happy about, you know, partnering with Trump, Gulf Coast, Santa Rosa County Economic Development, as well as the County commissioner commissioned in Santa Rosa County and the U.S. government with a department of commerce and also the governor's office that I actually launched us with a job growth grant that got us our first truck.

And then I can't forget the Lewis Bear Company who also donated a truck to help us with launching our truck driver training program.

But this new facility will be state of the art.

We'll be able to do testing as well as the long-term over the haul over the road, licensure, and then also short haul and passenger CDLs.

- Now I must say you're very nifty with a shovel.

I did see the picture of you from the groundbreaking with a lot of these partners.

It was just phenomenal.

And Mike, I'm going to speak with you regarding how long this program has been in existence.

Not too long, right?

- No, it's still a relatively new program for us, but it was again brought from just the need to have people, you know, enter this career.

And we've all experienced shortages that have been brought on by the pandemic, as well as other challenges.

And we're doing the job of filling that need.

And I'm extremely proud of the program of the college for doing that.

Now the program itself was started as non-credit around 2019.

- Okay.

- And then we've continued to increase our capacity and the facility will allow us to further increase that capacity in meeting the job demands that are currently out there.

- Well, I hear we're on a 10 month track to completion, and I know you're really thrilled about that.

This specific location can you tell our viewers where it's going to be?

- So it's in East Milton Santa Rosa County Industrial Park, and it's 87, right, Dr. Meadows off 87.

And again, everything is gonna be designed for this program.

So we're gonna have state-of-the-art equipment, including truck driving simulators, driving loop, as well as state-of-the-art classrooms so that we can train people and increase capacity.

- Now tell us a little bit about the two trailer trucks that were donated.

Dr. Meadows you alluded to that a little bit earlier, but this is huge.

There are not cheap, are they?

- They're not.

And that's one thing as we've really built this program is the amount of support that we've gotten from business, from the community.

You know the tractor trailer combinations are not cheap.

And the fact that one of our partners in the community Lewis Bear was able to come forward and make that donation was very significant to help us getting started.

- Get back to you in just a moment.

So Dr. Meadows, with your connections in the community, I know that you spoke about the partners previously, but what was the catalyst that actually made all this possible?

The idea, who was the brainchild behind that?

- Well, you know, the mission of the institution is high quality affordability and access.

So the college is responsible for constantly scanning the horizon for new workforce needs.

And the national shortage has been publicized over and over in terms of a truck driver training.

So it was no one person that thought, let's have a truck driver training program is something that surfaced as a result of the workforce need, as it does with other programs.

And talking about local partners, we didn't have a place for our students to practice.

So NAS step forward with providing Protestant field, which is the old landing strip.

And that provided us a space off the roads to actually allow students to practice.

And it's my understanding that a lot of other community agencies use that as well to practice such as our law enforcement.

So we share that currently with other agencies, just West of Pensacola, off of 90.

The Industrial Park that Michael was referring to is Ashley off of 90.

- Okay.

- It's called the Industrial Park East, and it's just past the main Industrial Park entry way But yes, indeed it does take a lot of partners.

And one thing where we're looking for is we're looking for trucking companies to step forward now that were publicized our new location and our ability to test.

And we would love to partner with the trucking industry to help train their future truckers.

You know, it's something that is not uncommon in the world of truck driver training is to have special contracts with companies that need a truck drivers.

- All right, and you heard that viewer, so chime in please with Dr. Meadows, if you will.

Now, Mike, we know that there are so many success stories coming out of this brand new program.

Why don't you share one with as quickly.

- Just one?

- I know right, there're so many.

- I think with, just to add quickly to Dr. Meadows points about building the program is our program really, it's the right program.

It's affordable to people and it's the right way to do things.

I think in attracting the students that we've currently have we've seen that.

And there's two particular stories that I have.

I know you said one, but we've had a homeless student that is literally living out of his van.

We've been able to get him licensed as well as connecting him to community resources that we have as a college to help him.

He's currently employed as well as we've had mother daughter team, or actually a mother son team that have gone through the program and they have aspirations of starting their own business.

So, I mean, those are just two stories, but really for people that have gone through the sky's the limit as far as what they wanna do.

- And how long would it take a person to complete the program?

- Right now, we're running eight weeks with plans to even make that shorter.

We're gonna be building again with the new facility as well.

Our ability to offer customized training.

So let's say that there is an employer or a business that wants their specific group trained or their specific endorsement trained.

We will offer that.

So again, we're gonna continue to increase our capacity.

- Thanks to both of you sit tight.

Okay.

Folks, as we head to break, remember to log on to Pensacolastate.edu, to explore all of our workforce programs.

Stay tuned, we'll be back right after this.

(upbeat music) - Hello, everyone.

During this segment, we're shifting gears focusing on other workforce programs that are quite popular.

Culinary and hospitality and building construction trades.

We might even have a few surprises to expand on this.

We're happy to welcome back, Dr. Ed Meadows and Michael Listau.

Let's keep this conversation flowing.

Now, Mike I'm gonna start with you culinary and hospitality.

Can you distinguish between the two because sometimes people try to maybe group them together.

- Sure, there certainly is overlap between the programs.

I mean they work together, but the culinary side of it is gonna be really, you know, focused on working in a restaurant and either the front of the house or the back of the house.

We've had students though that, you know, outside of restaurants have been able to start their own food trucks or different endeavors that they might have.

But now the hospitality side of things, that's gonna be more for like hotel management, as well as maybe event planning.

- Okay.

- So there certainly is overlap between the programs.

- I like that.

Dr. Meadows, you are such a busy man.

Let's talk about Molly McGuire.

We here at PSC know quite a bit about it, but for our viewers who don't, will you explain?

- Well, of course, the Molly McGuire dell scholarship.

The goal is a half million dollar endowed scholarship to support culinary students.

And this was through the generosity of McGuire Martin, who is the owner of Flounders and Maguire's and several other restaurants.

But this scholarship is extremely important because you don't think about the kinds of things that students need, but they're actually in uniform, they need the special shoes and the aprons, equipment like knives that are necessary in a kitchen setting.

But to follow up with what Michael was talking about, a lot of the overlap may be that these students have opportunities to work in resorts either in the culinary arts or in the hospitality management, or they work in bakery shops.

And the other thing that a lot of our students are interested in is catering.

So a lot of the restaurants actually do both.

They both cater and they also serve in house.

So it's an immediate impact type of employment because of our tourism industry.

And so when you couple that with some of the other workforce programs like cosmetic arts, you know, you have a lot of our students that want to open their own cosmetic shop or spa.

So we teach a lot of things like (indistinct), abrasion and nail technology, as well as hairstyling.

- Okay.

- And we have a ballroom program as well.

So all of those things cater in an immediate impact in supporting the tourism industry in Northwest Florida.

- That's amazing.

And the interesting thing Mike, doesn't really take too long to complete the programs he just mentioned, right?

So on average, about how much time would you say roughly.

- Well I think depending on the program, we have options for people.

We can have programs that can be a semester, a year or less.

- Okay.

- Or even up to a two year associates.

You know, with what Dr. Meadows was saying about them being in uniform, all of our programs, simulate actual job type environments.

And we do that in providing services to the community as well.

So our culinary and hospitality, we do a lunch and dinner series, as well as in our cosmetic arts programs.

We provide haircuts to the communities as well as participation in various community events, such as veterans stand down where we're providing haircuts to veterans.

You know, so I think simulating real job skills, when they're with us so that they can immediately transition into a position in the workforce.

- And what we want is a lot of people to transition over here to Pensacola State College and start a lot of these programs, right Dr. Meadows?

- That's exactly right.

It's all about finding people for the workforce.

And right now we're in a critical shortage in all aspects of the workforce, whether you're talking about construction science or cosmetic arts or whether you're talking about culinary and hospitality management, and even in the healthcare sciences area that we'll be speaking about later, huge shortages of skilled workers.

- That is so true.

We know one of the biggest hits here at the college and in the community, the culinary lunch dinner series and for those who don't want to sit down and eat, they can order some takeout.

Why don't you talk a little bit about that.

- Sure and that idea to you just to give it a little bit of history on it came really from the challenges associated with COVID and the pandemic over the past years, the faculty said, well, how can we still provide these hands-on type experiences for students and do it safely.

And that was the idea they came up with was to do not only like we're currently doing the lunch and dinner series, but also a take-home option where people can take a pre-prepared meal home, essentially warm it up and have a great dinner with their families.

- I love that idea.

So something happened recently.

American Culinary Federation accreditation, that's a big deal.

- It is a big deal.

It just recognizes training programs that we had an external group of people come in and walk through our program, review our curriculum, review our faculty.

And they said that we're doing a really good job in giving us this endorsement.

Additionally, it's additional certifications that students can list on their resumes when they're applying for jobs.

And I'll just kind of say in all workforce programs, we do try to build in either various accreditations, as well as industry credentials that are recognized by employers and ACF is no different.

- Spectacular.

Dr. Meadows, I know you hear from students and do you have maybe just a little something you'd like to add.

Maybe someone who has graduated from culinary hospitality maybe come to you and said, Hey, Dr. Meadows, I'm now working at this big resort.

Let me tell you how I'm doing.

- Well, a few years back, we had a young lady that had a dual citizenship in Japan and America as well.

And she was here in our culinary program.

And her goal was to go back home and have a bed and breakfast at the foot of Mount Fuji.

And she came to me because there was a course that required her to, for graduation one course.

But she had taken other courses and we were able to work out a substitute course and general education for her because she had a timeline to start her business and her loan application.

So I would love to think that she actually has that bed and breakfast in one day.

I might actually get to go and, - Put that on your bucket list.

- That's right, but such a sweet person.

But so we don't have many foreign students in our culinary program, but she found her way through us through a vacation that her parents brought her to Pensacola.

And for vacation as she found this school and she said, "my goodness, I got dual citizenship so I'm staying.

I'm gonna get the degree and I'm gonna go back home.

- All right.

Wonderful story.

Many, thanks to both of you.

Such great information that you shared.

As we head to break we want to share some reminiscent images from our culinary and hospitality program.

Stay tuned we'll be back right after this.

(upbeat music) - Hello, everyone.

During this segment, we'll be highlighting several of our healthcare programs.

I must say there are some innovative developments and I'm excited as to expand on this.

We're happy to welcome Dr. Dusti Sluder.

Dean of Health Sciences.

She's joined by Dr. Mitzie Sowell.

Department, head of Health Sciences.

Remember Dr. Sowell when I said exciting things, we have a brand new immersive technology room.

I'm very, very happy about that.

So why don't you tell us about it really sounds innovative.

- We're very happy about it as well.

It really immerses the student and puts them into the scene.

That scene can change from a wreck to an emergency room, an ambulance, a maternity ward.

And the way that's done is there are four projectors that project on each wall and the floor.

So you get the entire scene around the student.

And you can switch from scene to scene with these things called hotspots.

So it's actually interactive to where you touch the wall.

And the scene will go from one scene to the next.

- Say for example, in one of these rooms.

Let's just say, hypothetically somebody needs CPR and the student is there.

Can they actually, through this technology perform the CPR in real time or?

- You can because one of the ways that we do that is using our different manikins, our different simulated manikins.

We have a device called LUCAS, which actually is used in the EMS field.

It actually does the compressions in the correct time at the correct depth.

So we could use that with the mannequin inside that room.

And you could put the scene of a wreck on the walls to where cars are going by, horns are honking, you hear an ambulance.

So you're not just doing those.

You're not just training for those in a controlled environment.

It really puts you into the scene.

- Now, one thing interesting you told me in the green room was that this immersion technology room can be used for other programs of study.

So really it's not particularly program specific.

- It can be used for anything.

There are underwater scenes, there are fireworks scenes to where when you touch the wall, the walls light up with fireworks.

You can actually embed quizzes to where you could have a question pop up in different questions on the wall and the student would have to touch the wall.

And it would tell them whether or not the answer was correct.

You can put voice in to where the student could touch the wall, touch an icon or a hotspot.

And you could have some sort of where you're giving the student respirations, heart rate, those sorts of things.

So it's really endless of what you can do.

- That is so amazing.

Dr. Sluder nursing is one of the most popular programs here at PSC.

What innovative things are happening in that program?

- Well again the simulation center that nursing utilizes to practice their skills and be prepared for the real life nursing profession.

Our simulation center opened in 2006.

And since then we have maintained it and really enhanced it throughout the years with donors from the community and from federal aid money.

But we have a very realistic mock hospital that not only the nursing students learn real life scenarios, but also the other health programs such as EMS and medical assisting phlebotomy.

There's a lot of different health programs that utilize that simulation center.

- So just out of curiosity, with simulation center, do you have any mannequins for example, that it can actually birth a child?

- Oh yes.

- Would that be one?

- It is a fabulous center to have, because we want every student in each of those health programs that are experiencing that simulation scenario to experience that session.

And so to provide consistency with these students and what they're learning, we do have several patients mannequins if you will, that replicate real life experiences.

Such as deliveries, mother deliveries, cesarean, postpartum.

We have mental health scenarios, critical care pediatrics.

And so it's very nice to have those simulations scenarios.

So we can assure that each student has the opportunity to witness such a session that they may not be able to witness out in the real life clinical setting.

- Love that hands-on approach.

So Dr. Sowell, TOMManikin now tell us what the acronym TOM stands for.

- TOM stands for Tactical Operation Medical.

And so it is a manikin that is really realistic to the human body.

It's very rugged.

It can withstand 6,000 pounds of pressure, which means it could be under something to where you have to get this manikin out.

It's plumbed with blood vessels and so it can actually bleed.

It can hold 1.2 gallons of fake blood.

And then it also responds realistically to whatever the responder is doing.

So if the responder in a different setting they could state I'm putting on a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, but in this situation they put on the tourniquet and it may not stop the bleeding.

If they didn't do it correctly, it would continue to bleed.

So this particular manikin can bleed, it can breed.

There are different models and the one that we have is a gunshot wound.

It has a gunshot wound that is packable.

It has entry and exit wounds.

It has breath sounds.

The instructor can speak through the manikin in English also Spanish and there are other languages available that you can get.

So it's really like working on a human.

- I need to come check that out myself.

Dr. Sluder back to you.

Let's talk about Emergency Medical Services EMS.

- So our EMS programs are very popular and we offer several types of programs and EMT program, which is our one semester program.

We offer that every semester.

And our paramedic program and then we have our associate degree in EMS.

Again, all very popular programs, our paramedic program, those students that wish to continue their career and healthcare can streamline into our nursing program and have a dual credential with paramedic in nursing.

- And the availability of scholarships, because we know there are scholarships out there and we need people to apply for them.

So Dr. Sluder why is it so important for people to harness that?

- Yeah, majority of these students actually are second career type.

And so they're coming back to the education world with already having families and maybe having to have a part-time job.

And so we depend on the scholarships and we have received many scholarships within the community.

Josephine and Bill Jones just awarded nursing program, a $250,000 endowed scholarship, which is very beneficial to the students.

It really helps the student focus on their education and allow them to be successful in the program.

- Ladies, we're going to have to have both of you back on the show.

Such a wealth of knowledge between the two of you.

I'll tell you what I'm excited.

So please explore these awesome programs.

Folks this has been such a rewarding show, and I want to thank all of our guests for joining us.

As a final reminder, log on to Pensacolastate.edu, to find out more about our numerous workforce programs.

I'm gonna make a Vincent Leary, thanks for watching.

And remember to keep it locked in right here on WSRE.

PBS for the Gulf Coast.

(upbeat music)