Wrapping Up and Planning for the Future

On this episode of the Tech Times podcast we chat with Superintendent and CEO Dr. Steve Tiger about another incredible school year. We also look forward to construction on the Career Education Center and discuss what it means for the community.

Transcript

Intro Voice Over: From Tulsa Tech, helping you make your own path with insights and information about the world of career training, the Tech Times Podcast starts right now. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Tech Times podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Williams. As we tie the bow on yet another wonderful traditional school year, we like to reflect on the major accomplishments of the past nine months.

It is important to note that several of our career training and workforce development programs continue throughout the summer, but many of our offerings do run that traditional August to May school year, and at the end of every school year, we get the pleasure of sitting down to chat with our superintendent.

And CEO, Dr. Steve Tiger. We're so excited to find space on his busy calendar for this episode. Dr. Tiger, welcome back to the pod. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Thank you, Ryan. I've been excited about this. I just can't believe it's been another year. It seems like just yesterday we were sitting down having this same end of the year podcast and I think a year has gone by that fast.

Just, it blows my mind and scares me at the same time 'cause I'm getting older. Every year they say that. 

Ryan Williams (Host): They say that time flies when you're getting older. And I'm, it's 

Dr. Steve Tiger: really going by fantastic. I'm starting to see 

Ryan Williams (Host): that happening and that's scaring me a lot. So it is. I wanna start with your thoughts on the amazing graduation ceremony we held earlier this month.

I know it must be special for you to see so many people celebrating their accomplishments. Absolutely. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: I think it's the most, monumental thing that we have throughout the year. Just that celebration of our students and to see. A thousand, approximately a thousand students. There. We have a couple more, or at least a thousand in addition to that, but a thousand that walked, and then most importantly, 10,000 or so that showed up family, friends to support them along with our faculty and staff that I was so glad to see that made an appearance as well.

But the celebration of the students and the smile on their face and just to see the applause from their. Their family and their friends and their support system. It just reminds me of the importance of what we do. Regardless of your role at Tulsa Tech, you play a huge role in our students' success.

And that evening was a way to celebrate not only the students, but everything that our faculty and staff do to get them to that point. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Fair point. We we get to celebrate not only the thousand 1100 students that were there walking the stage, but then the other 2000 or so that graduated also this year and weren't able to attend, but absolutely.

It's such a great event. Such a great celebration. It's beautiful. Love to see all the confetti too. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Yes. 

Ryan Williams (Host): On our kickoff episode this year, you mentioned this being year number 13 and how your daughter. Thought that was a lucky number. So were you able to find any luck this year? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: I've thought about that all year and I'm actually glad that it's coming to, to an end and starting year number 14, because you Yes, it is my daughter's lucky number and she came through.

For me, but we had a couple of moments throughout the year, some challenges here or there, which we always do in a district this size and dealing with business and industry and patrons and students. So a lot of things can go wrong. So anytime we had a hiccup, I would run into that scary place thinking, here we go.

It's year number 13. It's gonna be the year that gets me, but. But thank the good Lord and thank you to all of our staff and faculty and administration and our board for helping us make it another good year because like you said, that's Lily's favorite lucky number, and it came through and I'm looking forward to year number 14.

Ryan Williams (Host): I think we put out some good vibes early on in the year, so hopefully that helped. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Yes, absolutely. 

Ryan Williams (Host): This time of year, as we talked about earlier, is always so special and met with. Excitement as we see students graduate from either Tulsa Tech or wherever they're at, and they move on to their next phase of life, what does this time of year mean to you?

Dr. Steve Tiger: I love the thought of our students transitioning. Some of them obviously will continue their education with us. Some of those will be second year students, some will take different programs. So a lot of them will be back. But it is exciting to know many of them are going to move forward with what we're preparing them for, which is to be successful in the workforce.

So I'm looking forward. To hearing about students' stories and as they report back to their faculty members with follow up and so forth, how well that they're doing. It it's a wonderful time of year to know that they're moving on, those students that are completing and moving on, get the experience that next journey, and their path.

And it's also at the same time celebrating the end of the year, but also. Building that excitement already for what's getting ready to happen this next school year. Both celebrating, coming, some, coming to the end and looking forward to their success in the future but also excitement about what's coming to us for the next school year.

Ryan Williams (Host): While the summer is a break for some of our students things will be busy around here. Not only with all the continued training, but we get to start work on the new career education center at the Lemley Memorial campus. I. Are you excited to finally see some dirt moving around? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: I am so excited. The bids have been sent out it was about a 60 day period and we're halfway in, so it's a very large project, and construction prices are going up.

Due to tariffs and other issues and challenges. So we're just keeping our fingers crossed that those bids will come in within our budget. And if so we will actually start construction in August and move forward with what we did call phase three, but now as the career education center.

Officially, and that will take us about approximately two and a half to three years to complete. It's around 350,000 square feet. 

Commercial: Wow. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Three floors of pretty much all instructional space serving, allowing us to serve more students in what I say, serve them better because we have existing programs and f and g the remaining instructional buildings.

From Lemley Memorial Campus. That will be first moved into the new facility and then we'll start expanding additional programs. So it's something along, it's been a long time coming it was supposed to start. Many people don't know this, but as soon as client service center was completed, which I think is about three years ago now, we were.

To roll right into what we called phase three then, but due to the pandemic and supply chain issues, concerns about the economy, we thought it would be prudent to put that on hold, and I'm glad that we did. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Yeah. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: But it is finally here. Hopefully if those bids come in where they need to be, and we can get started.

Ryan Williams (Host): It sounds like it'll be an, a great investment for taxpayers. You talked about the square footage and the floor space. Share with us the impact that, that, that building will have on the community. I. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: A huge impact. I think it makes a big statement about the importance of what we do in career technical education, specifically Tulsa tech.

The investments that our patrons have made over the years. It's nearly 60 years now in property taxes that allow us to fund projects like this. We've been saving in our building fund, which is dedicated for these types of projects for a number of years now, and preparing for it and. Ley Memorial Campus being the original campus where we all started serving two to 300 students.

Now once this is all said and done, we'll be the largest campus to my knowledge in Oklahoma and probably the region I. Of its kind. So this will be the capstone career Education Center to the heart and soul of Tulsa Tech, which is this campus. And I think it signifies our success most importantly, is gonna allow us to serve once again more students than we can.

We have a waiting list, typically of a thousand full-time students. And the workforce is clamoring for more skilled workers. And this is our way of putting our. Best foot forward in trying to meet that demand as best we can. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Not to be biased towards Lemley Memorial campus, but it's such a centralized location in Tulsa that it's really gonna help a lot of those students with transportation issues or things like that, that they can get.

That's great point to campus as well as our business and industry partners have a centralized location to be able to hold those trainings, hold those meetings. Absolutely. And be able to just. Have a great facility to do that in. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: No, that, that's an excellent point. I'm glad you mentioned it. I failed to.

But that's one of the most important parts of this facility. And the instruction we'll provide is the location centrally located to our district. Many of our high school students and adults. Even with their transportation challenges, if they're in spare or sky took and they need manufacturing a machining program, they'd have to drive the broken arrow.

A lot of 'em that presents challenges. If you're on a bus, that's a very long bus ride, so maybe you decide not to take advantage of that program. Our adult career development programs, we serve more of those students at this location than any because of where it's at. So I think we'll really be able to not only expand full-time programs but continue to add offerings in adult career development and business and industry services.

The location point that you made is a big one. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Let's take a quick break, okay. When we come back, we'll dig into next school year a bit more and see if Dr. Tiger has any plans for the summer. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Always too many.

Commercial: What would you do if you only had one life to live? That's how this whole thing works.

So fight off more than you can shoot. Don't wait for someone else's green light. Go after what they say you can't. Oklahoma needs more. Doers. Doers. Don't wait. Get skilled, get paid. Tulsa Tech Powered by Oklahoma Career Tech.

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay, we are back joined by superintendent and CEO, Dr. Steve Tiger. Before the break, Dr. Tiger, we talked about closing out another successful school year and the work that starts this June. This next school year, we are enhancing our offerings in both practical nursing and our aviation maintenance programs.

Why are we making those changes? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Workforce demand. That's really what we focus on when it comes to adding programs. We do look at interest, obviously we look at wait list but most importantly we look at what economic impact our programs would make a high return on investment. High demand, high skill, high wage.

Those are the programs that we're looking to add. And at this point in time aviation and LPN, you really couldn't find two better programs. So we received some one time state dollars for wait list issues throughout the state. So we made the decision based on the data that we, review that our best investments would be not to necessarily add new programs but to eat away at some of the wait list issues and challenges we're having with those particular programs, and especially with American growing their operation space here. And obviously the healthcare nursing shortage.

I'm really happy that we landed on that decision. 

Ryan Williams (Host): So how do we deal with the cyclical nature of demand? For various career training programs. So obviously industry goes through a cyclical nature of high growth and then not so much. How do we deal with that in the training sector? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: It is a challenge.

You typically don't see that we talked about the new programs we're adding LPN and aviation. You typically don't see that in the healthcare industry. It's very stable, not even stable. It's always ever increasing the need and there's shortage. But aviation, we have seen that in our market.

We had concerns years back I remember about American maybe moving operations and that was concerning. We worked with our chambers economic development officers to help be part of the plan to keep them in Tulsa. Because we know how important that workforce is to us. It's not only American.

You've got Spirit, you've got Nor Dam, you've got Theon, and you've got many others that are in that space that need these workers. It's a risk with any program, but what we try to do is really review data and analyze it and don't just make decisions based on what we think.

We know that our funds need to be used wisely, and we need the biggest return on investment as possible. So we make very data informed decisions, and we always have risk in everything we do, but we try to take as much of that out of it we can. 

Ryan Williams (Host): I'm guessing we're forecasting all that workforce data for.

10 years out and things like that too. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Yeah. It's hard to for 10 years. But you can get a nice look at it for at least five years out. Sure. And hopefully beyond. And then, like I mentioned earlier, with American, when we do see workforce maybe leaving or relocating. From this area.

We work with our partners to try to maintain that workforce here in Tulsa. So that's part of what we do also. It's not just offering the training programs, but it's really in the space of economic development. And that's what separates, differentiates. Career tech from other educational entities like higher education or K 12.

That's truly our focus is economic development. 

Ryan Williams (Host): We've seen that quick turnaround with other business and industry leaving towns across Oklahoma, that big Michelin plant, things like that left. And so we're retraining those workers. Almost instantly. Really? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: And that's a really good point to that.

When you do everything you can to. Prevent it from happening. You put in programs that are forecasting where the real growth is projecting that, but when unfortunately things take a shift, then career tech is known to be the educational entity that's there to retrain and those employees and to help find quality jobs for them.

Ryan Williams (Host): You speak a lot about jobs, even using the old jobs, quote. That 

Dr. Steve Tiger: goes back a ways. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Oh. What was your first paying job and are there any skills you learned there that you still use today? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Oh, I, now it's like I'm talking to my kids that don't want to get out and get a job, but, yeah, that's interesting.

I and some people may not realize this, but I came from a very working class family. My dad was a steel worker for 40 years here in this area at Sand Springs and Sheffield still has closed down since mom was a social worker. So we were really, good middle class, but they worked hard for everything we had.

And I grew up in rural Oklahoma in a small town. I was told not asked if I wanted to. I was told that I had to work at a very young age I started mowing yards and making money probably at 14. Just trying to have some extra cash and then hauling hay. A lot of people don't know that.

There used to be square bales of hay instead of these big round bales of hay. And so there were almost 30, 40, 50 pounds a piece, and you'd have one person driving the truck. One person on the trailer, another one throwing the bells on the trailer so they could stack 'em and then you would rotate it.

And so I did that for a while to make money. 

Ryan Williams (Host): That's some hot and heavy work. It was hot 

Dr. Steve Tiger: and heavy. And my funny story, my best friend and I decided instead of three man crew, it'd just be him and I. He would drive. I would throw up as many as I could. He'd jump out, we'd stack 'em, we'd take turns and we realized that there was a reason that you needed three.

A little more friction. Yeah. But I think my first official job was, with the W2, and it was early on, I was driving, so I was 16, I probably was just 16. And it was with a construction company, a local construction company where I'm from, de Pub, Bristow area. And they would actually, prepare the infrastructure in additions, housing additions.

So if you think where they clear all these trees and it's just dirt, you have to do all the ditch work to put in the piping for the plumbing and the gas. Yeah. And so that's what they did. So my job being new was to stay inside the ditch. In this open area in a hundred degrees of weather as they ditched it, I would have to hand shovel the dirt out that would fall in to keep it clean.

That's the, that was probably the worst job that I've had. I've had some other difficult ones, but I think that was my way, my dad's way of keeping me in school. Not to say those jobs aren't important, but I knew real quick I didn't want to do that the rest of my life. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Great lesson, oh, absolutely.

I have 

Dr. Steve Tiger: some scars to prove it. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Dr. Tiger, you're also on the board for the Tulsa Regional Chamber. What does that role look like and how does that work impact our community there? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: That's one of my favorite boards. And there all the boards that, that I've served on have been wonderful, but I really enjoy being part of Tulsa Regional Chamber Board because it brings together a lot of business high level business leaders that are working together to try to have.

A better economic economy for our region. Maintaining jobs, growing jobs. Having successful training for jobs. So their mission is really in line with what we do at Tulsa Tech. So I see my place on that board as being important and adding, being able to add some value. But also it gives me an opportunity to network with, it's a fairly large board, but network with those individuals to build relationships and tell our story.

I have many opportunities to, to speak public publicly to them. And educate them on what Tulsa Tech does because I'm always surprised at the people that know our brand, they know about us, but they really are just scratching the surface on truly understanding who we are and how we can help.

But we've made, I think, part of the reason we've been in successful in, in, in really making headway with these partnerships and being involved with these boards and doing the external work that we do. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Okay. One question that we always need to find out is, do you have any big plans this summer?

Dr. Steve Tiger: I was looking at my calendar actually today when I came down trying to balance work and life, and I encouraged everyone to have a very healthy work life balance. I believe in that, and I also believe family comes first, but if you don't. If you're not successful at your job, you're not gonna be able to support your family.

So you gotta be able to balance both very well. And I just realized how quick June and July is gonna be over. I have one annual trip, a fishing trip with just my parents and my wife. That's the 1st of June. And then her and I have a nice little. Anniversary trip planned. So we'll have our time away, which I think is important for marriage.

And then we have our family trip where all the kids come, which I've got Lily and Garrett and Gracie. And so it'll be a, it'll be a full crew. And that trip means a lot of work. And I think I told you this, a lot of logistics. Yes. I told you this last time and I didn't learn from it. I should have planned the.

Couple trip after the family trip to have some type of break. Oh, and I got it wrong again. Between that and like you said, phase three work, we got a lot of. Budgeting has to take place. A lot of hiring that has to take place. It really is a busy time of year in my role and others. It doesn't just stop.

And some people ask me that outside of here, I guess you don't. Have much to do in the summer. You get the summer off and it's far from that. But I am able to at least take a couple of weeks of vacation. Enjoy some. Yeah. They don't know. We have programs that start, that's 1st of July on staffing and budgeting, and now we've got, the huge career education center that we're hopefully getting to move forward on.

And that's going to, that's gonna take a lot of time. 

Ryan Williams (Host): So do you have any secret fishing spots you'd like to divulge here or keep those to yourself? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: I wish I went enough to tell you that, but no I go and usually it's just my dad and I sitting and talking and we don't catch many fish, but it's, that's why it's called fish.

You not catching. But those are the best times to be able to hang out 

Ryan Williams (Host): with your parents. That's right. So lastly, when we return in August, we'll be celebrating 60 years Wow. Of Tulsa Tech. What does that mean to you to lead us into this exciting milestone? 

Dr. Steve Tiger: I think first thought that I have is I'm, I.

Blessed and grateful and humbled to have been here on the 50 year celebration. So now I'm here still for the 60th. We're a large district and superintendent's tenure nationally and large districts is not nearly. Even 10 years. So I don't know where you're headed with this conversation, but I don't like it one bit, so I'm, no, I'm very happy.

I, I I doubt you know, who knows? I'm not telling, I doubt if I'd be here the next 10, because this will be my 14th year. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna enjoy this one. And I've still got, I've still got plenty of years left, Ryan. Good. I don't know about another full 10.

It might be time for someone else to take over the reigns, but I'm gonna give it all I got whatever time I am here. And like I said, it's not a year to it's still in the years, so Yeah. So no worries. But most importantly what I think about is I think about the graduation. And I heard a board member mention this the other day at a retiree reception.

How special that ceremony was and seeing the thousand students that completed the families and all the businesses that will have a positive impact by those graduates. And you just multiply that. I know we've grown, it wasn't always that many students, but over 60 years, if you think of the impact that Tulsa Tech has had on this region.

On businesses, but most importantly lives. We I used to work at Pioneer Tech and I don't know if it still is, but their tagline was, enhancing lives and securing Futures was our mission statement. And I still use that a lot. 'cause I truly think that's what we do. And that's, I see our faculty and staff their passion about that.

They're passionate about changing these students' lives regardless of their age. And when we do that well. The amazing impact that has on workforce and economic development, which is our true focus. 

Ryan Williams (Host): Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Tiger. 

Dr. Steve Tiger: Yes, sir. It's been a pleasure. I hope everyone has a 

wonderful summer.

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