I spend a significant part of my time "selling" the Tooele County area. Whether it's working with a relocation client and talking about our schools, or trying to get Miller Motorsports Park to think about marketing to the locals, I always am talking about the quality of life here in Tooele. About the only thing I've struggled with in that regard was opportunities for students that are coming out of High School that aren't interested in "college life".
These aren't dumb kids, just kids that may have an aptitude or interest in a career that doesn't always fall under the realm of traditional higher education. For, example, I have a son with a passion for drawing and an interest in drafting/architecture. However, he has little interest in English lit, Sociology, or the writings of Plato. On the other hand, he's be very interested in some training where he could start earning a very good living in a much shorter time frame. Up to now, his options would be to leave home or commute to a Technical College for this sort of thing.
Even when Tooele received it's own Applied Technical College a few years back, unless he had an interest in nursing, he was kind of stuck. Bless the ATC, they were trying. But, there's only so much you can offer in an old School District office and with no money.
The frustration that I've had with this issue has been building with others in Tooele County for a long time. We already ship too many people to Salt Lake to work, because those technical jobs aren't available here. They aren't available here because we don't have a trained workforce to draw employers. Well, that era ends today around 4pm.
At that time, Governor Gary Herbert will sign HB4. It authorizes roughly $89 Million in bonds dedicated to various Capital construction projects around the State. Of that, somewhere between 7-9 million has been dedicated to the construction of the new Tooele Applied Technology College building, as part of the Tooele County Education Corridor. Rather than the "one room school house" they've been existing in , they'll now have a State of the Art,16,000 square foot dedicated building on the same "campus" as the Community Learning Center and Utah State University's Tooele Campus.
I've seen the proposed plans for class offerings, and I think I can say with some certainty, that a Tooele County student will be able to start in pre-school and progress all the way through to a Masters degree or technical certification without ever leaving Tooele County. Then, they can use that education to get a job here, buy a home here, raise their family here, because the jobs will be here.
This dream has come true, not just because of the Guv and Legislature. It worked because of the partnership that developed between local governments, Utah State University, UCAT (Utah College of Applied Technology), the Tooele County School District, and a ton of citizens that want to make Tooele a better place to live. Utah State University donated the land, (and subordinated a project or two of their own!), and Tooele City will contribute around $5 million in addition to the State funds. Also, local business and education leaders spent countless hours to "teach" the legislature about the need to improve education and economic development in Tooele County.
As the Governor said in an AP article at connect2utah.com, he hates to bond (borrow), but the timing is right because construction costs are so low. He has said all along that education and economic development are the keys to the continued success of Utah. That is no less true of Tooele.
In these uncertain economic times, and at a time when no one in Utah is comfortable spending money (especially the Guv!), it was comforting to know that there was enough vision to see that now is the time to do this project. Working together on this partnership was part of this. That vision is going to pay big dividends in Tooele County for a long time to come. And, if you've ever had the Aggie Ice Cream that Utah State University is supplying us with after the ceremony, you'll really understand why I'm so happy!
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