Fort Scott to end trucking program at FHTC
Tech college may look for new partner in Wichita to continue classes
By Scott Rochat
Monday, February 12, 2007
Fort Scott Community College is going to put the brakes on its truck-driving partnership with Flint Hills Technical College.
FHTC President Dean Hollenbeck said Monday that Fort Scott had decided to stop offering the trucker courses in Emporia. The move would take place in May, ending a four-year-old agreement between the two schools.
“I don’t think it was a financial issue,” Hollenbeck said. Fort Scott always paid rent to the technical college and got the revenue from the courses, along with a lot of good publicity.
But lately, he said, the school has needed more trucks for its Kansas City training center, which might have influenced the decision. Also, he said, Fort Scott was trying to concentrate on drawing students to its main campus.
“One thing they mentioned is that ‘By us having the school here, we’re not filling our dorms at Fort Scott,’” Hollenbeck told the technical college’s board of trustees on Monday. “I understood immediately. I dealt with that for years in Colorado. I had to shut a dorm down because we couldn’t fill it.”
Fort Scott first offered the course on its own campus in 1979, expanding to Kansas City, Kan. in 1988 and then striking the Emporia deal in 2003.
From the start, the truck-driving course has been a popular one in Emporia. In its first year, 2003-2004, a total of 67 people graduated from the program. Last year, it trained about 90 students.
Hollenbeck said the technical college would look for other partnerships to continue the trucking program. One possibility, he said, would be to team with Wichita Area Technical College, which also offers a trucker-training course.
“I’d like to see us run the whole thing ourselves if it was financially feasible,” trustee Marshall Miller said. “But it may not be.”
It would be nice but it’s not likely, Hollenbeck said, given the cost of vehicles, insurance and maintenance. It costs Fort Scott $5,000 to $6,000 a month just to maintain the trucks it has in Emporia, he said.
One reason for the course’s popularity is the high demand for drivers. According to a 2005 study by the American Trucking Association, each year the nation needs about 20,000 more truck drivers than it has. By 2014, the demand for long-haul drivers is expected to reach 1.62 million, the same time that over 200,000 truckers will hit retirement age.
“That’s what’s driving freight rates up,” trustee Brad Kraft said. “Driver shortages.”
New name
The technical college’s Industrial Maintenance Technology program has been renamed.
Instructor Jerry Linsea said the new name, “Industrial Engineering Technology” seemed a better way to show students and counselors what the program offered. The name was changed after a survey by the department.
“There’s just a real disconnect with the old name,” Hollenbeck agreed. “They just felt they were coming in and learning how to fill buckets and mop. ... This is kind of a pre-engineering course.”
The program includes courses such as wiring, welding, working with heating and air conditioning units, blueprint reading and programming logic controllers.