FYI FRIDAYS! return

CBIS director has powerhouse plans to finish up year

Summer's over.

That's the sentiment with which Shelley Glendenning, director of Big Bend Community College's Center for Business and Industry Services, is approaching the final months of her year-long FYI FRIDAYS! program.

"As Americans, we are all enculturated into summers (as) time off and everything really starts again after Labor Day," she said.

The summer sessions of the program, designed to be a time of community and learning for local business owners and employees, were "a little bit in neutral," Glendenning said.

"We tried to close during the summer and people wouldn't let us," she said, noting that meeting attendance never fell below seven people.

"(There's) that idea of bringing in a real firestarter to kick off the remainder of the FYI Fridays, because they'll come to a conclusion Nov. 12," she said.

As such, the 8 a.m. Friday meeting at the Noon Moon will boast guest speaker Robert Clancey, executive vice president for Learnpoints, a software program that helps colleges sell industry.

Clancey said he is going to speak about strategic partnerships between community colleges and businesses.

"I really am going to try and educate industry on the true asset they have right in their own backyard," he said. "The big thing in community colleges is we're the best-kept secret. That's true throughout the country."

Clancey said that industries do not realize that community colleges go through the same steps as any private vendors or resources in the training world would do.

"We have at our exposure more assessment tools than a single private industry can," he said.

When a company comes to view an area they are looking to move into, the first group they look at are the economic-development people, Clancey said, to see what kind of help with funding and tax rebates can be provided.

"The main thing they're looking for is a trained work force," Clancey said. "There's no better resource to train a work force than a community college."

Clancey said that the message he hopes to get across to the FYI FRIDAYS! audience is that in working with BBCC, they would have a flexible strategic partner.

"I was delighted that he's going to come — he's a real powerhouse," Glendenning said. "He has a lot of good stuff to share about how community colleges all over the country are supporting business, manufacturing and industry."

Glendenning said that Clancey made quite a reputation helping businesses support business, and then moved into academia at Bellevue Community College with what she called phenomenal results.

CBIS small business director Allan Peterson recently said that once the program ends, it will move to a monthly meeting in January at BBCC's Advanced Technology Education Center, but Glendenning said the plan has changed. She declined to comment further.

In the coming weeks, Glendenning said she thinks that the program has some "kick-butt" presenters, and noted that from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 20, the center will partner with Samaritan Healthcare for a leadership conference downloaded live from the East Coast with Mikhail Gorbachev and Donald Trump.

"That's the day before [former 'Apprentice' contestant] Kwame Jackson comes," she said. "Isn't that a big-bang, one-two punch?"

Glendenning said that she is pleased with the FYI FRIDAYS! program's growth.

"The feeling that I get now, it's like old home week every Friday morning," she said. "It's hugging and hellos and we still every week have new people that are coming. Last week we had a guy that drove in from Wenatchee. It's phenomenal to me how it's changed."7723Ohm\AE#F-FYI Fridays Back From HiatusClydz HD772SORToeAe2AUDTAe”)()(N