Kenai Peninsula College showcases career programs to Board of Regents

The University of Alaska Board of Regents met at Kenai Peninsula College last weekend for the first time since April 2012.

During a meeting where the board chose to strike diversity and inclusivity language from university materials, OK’d new programs focused on data science and behavior health and accepted new recommendations to drive recruitment and retention, the body also took time to receive a showcase of KPC’s programs.

A group of KPC students, representing the paramedic and process technology degrees as well as the Kenai Peninsula Middle College School, were first to speak during the full board meeting Thursday afternoon.

Luis Yoder and Garrick Martin are taking paramedic courses at the college. Both also work as emergency responders on the central peninsula.

Yoder said he’s an engineer for Central Emergency Services, and he takes courses at KPC while living and working in Soldotna. Many of his colleagues, similarly, have been through KPC’s program.

“This campus will continue to provide value for our community for many years to come by allowing young people to prepare to serve the community they love without ever having to leave it,” he said.

Martin, similarly, said that the courses he’s taken at KPC have prepared him to better serve as a firefighter and emergency medical technician at the Kenai Fire Department. He said he’d like to be an instructor one day — “I want to teach, eventually, the next generation of EMS responders that want to pursue this career.”

Joe Reynolds and Sean Seyler said they were drawn to the process technology degree to advance in the local oil and gas industry.

Reynolds, who lives in Ninilchik, said he suffered a workplace accident that precluded him from continuing a previous career. He joined the process technology program to seek out a new career — and at KPC he’s gotten to work with “real systems.” This summer, he’ll begin an internship with Hilcorp.

Seyler said process technology represents a career change. He graduated from Kenai Central High School in 1987 and secured a degree in a technical field — “but I was unable to break through.” The process technology program at KPC, he said, is “well known for producing operators and instrument techs in the industry.” Many are hired while at KPC, before completing their degrees.

“I’m anxious to get into a position where I can work or make more money and have something to retire with,” he said. “I’ve chosen the right program to put me where I want to be.”

Madison Davenport, a Kenai Central High School junior, and Madelyn Ross, a Soldotna High School senior, are both enrolled in the middle college — they’re taking college courses alongside their high school classes. Both said the program is giving them an early look at college-level education and a head start on their post-high school careers.

That evening, KPC staff and students hosted a larger showcase of the school’s programming in the Career and Technical Center on campus. The board’s last visit to the peninsula in April 2012 was for the groundbreaking of the very same building.

During the event, attended by the board and also by dignitaries from the Kenai Peninsula Borough, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, the Kenaitze Indian Tribe and other local businesses, students and staff showed off a variety of KPC’s programs, including process technology like that which professionals use to operate machinery in the oil industry, health care, engine repair and others.

Bernadine Atchison, chair of the Kenaitze Tribal Council, also spoke about the importance of Dena’ina language courses taught in collaboration between the tribe and the university.

“Tonight is meant to be interactive,” KPC Director Cheryl Siemers told attendees during the showcase. “It’s a chance to talk about the importance of a college in our local community and what it means to each of us to have those opportunities right here.”

Among the most eye-grabbing displays in the building was “Big Silver,” a massive network of pumps and tanks that fills a large area of the facility. Professor of Process Technology Jeffrey Laube said the system circulates water, but resembles the equipment that would be used in the oil and gas industry.

“It still comes with all the stress,” he said. “Starting and stopping pumps … bypassing valves and maintaining flows.”

In the control room for Big Silver on Friday was Reynolds, making modifications to flow rates and valve openings in response to the changing circumstances as Laube demonstrated the machine to attendees. The system operates, he said, very similarly to the equipment operators use every day at Marathon’s Kenai Refinery to separate oils and produce various products.

The work being done at KPC, to prepare students to enter local industries, is important to the whole state, UAA Chancellor Sean Parnell said during the showcase.

“You’re creating opportunity for your communities,” he said. “You’re creating a greater Alaska — for the rest of us and for all of us.”

For more information, visit kpc.alaska.edu.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.