New Tech Skills Center - Karene Duffy

            Feb. 10: Rotary Connect, 4:30 p.m. at Maryhill Winery, 1303 W. Summit Parkway.

 

            Feb. 17: No meeting on Presidents’ Day, holiday.

 

            Feb. 24: Lunch at Nectar, Jim Dodd, Food for Kidz.

            Mar. 2: Lunch at Nectar, Guatemala Literacy Project.

 

 

            Big day for “Big Build”:  Nine GU Rotaract members and “a good chunk of our members” processed more than 1,000 bags of food Feb. 1 for our club’s project at the 2^nd Harvest Food Bank center.

The Spokane-North Club and friends tied for place in the amount of processed food, behind the winners from EWU.        

         

  At the event, club President Melinda Keberle was honored as an “MVVP” (Most Valuable Volunteer Person) at 2^nd Harvest for her work with the “Bite to Go” program at Riverview Elementary.

 

            Jobs wanted: Following the resignation of Tim Zacharias, the board still needs to fill the secretary position for the Rotary year, which ends June 30.

 

 A few openings also remain for the 2020-21 Rotary Year, when President-elect Steve Bergman moves up to the club presidency.

 

 

 

 

The club’s annual fund-raising effort for projects at Holmes Elementary and other projects are set, President Melinda Keberle said.

            The date: Friday, Oct. 2.

 

            The site: McGinnity Room, 116 W. Pacific.

 

            Keberle said the new venue provides a larger space—it wall accommodate more than 200 people -- than the Kalispel Country Club sites and a central place downtown.

 

            The hall, in a restored historic building, is named for the late Daniel T. McGinnity, a chemical engineer and patent attorney who died in 2016.

 

            Several more committee members are needed to help out in the fund-raising effort, Keberle said.

 

           

            With courses ranging from Animation Technology to Robotics to Wildlife and Fish Management, the curriculum expands at the Spokane-based NEWTech Skill Center.

 

            At the Feb. 3 club luncheon, Karene Duffy, the skill center director, displayed the variety of courses and the “soft skill” programs at NEWTech, located at 4141 N. Regal.

 

            Several years ago, club members toured the center and had lunch prepared by students there.he tech center serves 40 high schools in 11 districts, including most Spokane area high schools and satellite areas such as Davenport and Colville.  (Colville operates the fish hatchery.)

 

            Duffy said the center focuses on programs “where the needs for jobs are great.”  Health care is one hot area and the center will add a pharmacy program next fall, she said.  The curriculum already includes intros to nursing, health careers, dentistry and veterinary.

 

            Another hot topic is intro to aerospace and aviation technology.

 

            A wide assortment of other programs include basic car maintenance and auto collision,  culinary arts and bakery, robotics and digital game and web design, cosmetology, criminal justice and graphic design.

 

            Duffy said as important as the direct skill building areas are the “soft skills.”  Those include critical thinking, collaboration, communication and quality measurements.

 

            For example, she said, “you ask students if you arrive 10 minutes late for a class, or 10 minutes early for class.”  That makes a big difference to prospective employers, she said.

 

            Adding a counselor to the skill center faculty has helped.  “She is fantastic and worth her wealth in gold.

 

            Asked about how skill students are recruited, Duffy said there are steering committees and out-reach all the way down to 5^th graders to show some of the possibilities.                               

 

            The skill center operates from 7:55 a.m. to 2:05 p.m., with an “AM Shift from 8:10-10:40 and a PM Shift from 11:25-1:55.”                                                                                                

                                       

            Duffy said attendance and graduation rates continue very high.

    

            As one young lady said in a video clip, “We are all treated like adults here.”