New KCKCC Technical Education Center to open Aug. 12

By ALAN HOSKINS

The opening of a new Technical Education Center that will take Kansas City Kansas Community College to the highest level in vocational and technical education will come Monday, Aug. 12, at the grand opening of the Dr. Thomas R. Burke Technical Education Center.

The second President Emeritus at KCKCC, Dr. Burke will be joined by current President Dr. Doris Givens in cutting the ceremonial ribbon in ceremonies starting at 11 a.m. at the new TEC located in what was formally a Walmart shopping complex at 65th and State Avenue.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is expected to attend and invitations have been extended to Kansas representatives in both the U.S. and state Senate and House of Representatives, all mayors and school superintendents in KCKCC’s service areas of Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties, all local elected officials and community leaders. In addition, KCKCC will close down its main campus from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. so college faculty and staff may attend.

“I don’t know of any school in the entire area with facilities this nice nor a school that does as much with industry,” said Mark Moehlman, coordinator of the Machine Technology program. “We don’t have enough people going into manufacturing. Now we’ll be able to train them with state of the art equipment.”

For Tiffany Bohm’s Physical Therapist Assistant program, the move will increase her teaching area from 3,400 square feet to 5,300 square feet.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Bohm. “As of July 1, we can evaluate patients. And we’ll have the space for a lot more combined labs.”

“This will be the premier technical education center in the greater Kansas City area and the entire state and Midwest,” said Brian Bode, Vice-President of Student and Financial Services who oversaw much of the construction of the $25 million project. ”We completely renovated and reconstructed everything and brought in as much state-of-the-art equipment as we could afford.”

Bode is particularly proud of the energy conservation measures taken in the re-construction, especially in the electrical and the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems. All are computer controlled.
Nearly 20 programs will be located in the 100,000 square foot main building and the adjoining 50,000 square foot Plaza.

Programs using heavier equipment such as Welding, Small Appliance Repair, HVAC and Machine Technology will be located in the Plaza.

The main building will house such varied programs as Cosmetology, Nail Technology, Culinary Arts, Computer Repair, Medical Assistant and Physical Therapist Assistant..

Services offered by both the Cosmetology and Nail Technology programs will be available to the public as part of state certification requirements.

Campus Police will be housed in an office just off the main lobby with video surveillance to be maintained throughout the main building and Plaza.

KCKCC previously opened three TEC programs – Auto Collision, Auto Technology and the new Hybrid and Electrical at 67th and State Avenue..

J.E. Dunn Construction is the Construction Manager of the project while B&B and Treanor Architects designed the buildings.