Going private – University of Montana-Helena College of Technology has turned its attention to the Helena private sector for help in keeping the two-year college solvent.

As future funding crises loom for the University of Montana-Helena College of Technology, president Steve Hoyle has turned attention to the Helena private sector for help in keeping the two-year college solvent.

By JOHN HARRINGTON – IR Business Editor

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2003/12/21/business/e01122103_01.txt

He’s not just going to businesses with his hand out, though. Rather, Hoyle is asking businesses what skills their current and future employees need, and whether they’d be willing to work with the college on re-shaping the curriculum to turn out graduates ready to take jobs in town.

"Around the country, two-year colleges have become the go-to source for companies needing to expand to build the economic base," Hoyle said. "We need to be down on Main Street, meeting with businesses and identifying needs, then developing skill sets, developing curricula and delivering it."

Hoyle says the college has to act now to avoid a half-million dollar shortfall in 2005, and fashioning programs to specifically meet the needs of local employers — and getting those employers to help pay the freight — is one way he sees to make up the difference. Another fundraiser, the launch of a foundation for the school, is planned for early next year.

One relationship the college has already established with the private sector bore fruit this fall, when 15 employees from Medical Accounting and Billing on the east side took a customized class in medical coding.

"The more the staff knows, the better they can perform their jobs," said Medical Accounting and Billing president Tom England. "This was an opportunity to get specialized instruction to them from an experienced instructor."

England started talks with Hoyle a year ago about his company’s needs, and the two worked on developing a class tailored to the needs of England’s staff.

"It’s an inital program, and it’s somewhat tentative, but we plan on continuing it," England said.

Meanwhile, another local firm, Wesco, has a need for people proficient in medical transcription, or listening to doctors’ recordings of notes from meetings with their patients and turning them into hard files. Wesco has started talks with UM-HCT to tailor classes for its needed skills.

Unlike the Medical Accounting class for existing employees, Wesco hopes to see classes for perspective employees while they’re still students at the college. Then, upon graduation, the students will be better prepared to join Wesco.

Wesco president Dana Glatz turned to the college after a statewide advertising campaign for medical transcriptionists returned exactly one qualified candidate. He considered basing the medical transcription part of the company in Denver, where Wesco has a small sales presence, but that would do nothing to help the local economy.

"We need not just a body, we need a person who is trained, who possesses the skill set to do the work," he said. "The question was, could HCT work with us and conceivably provide us with a steady stream of trained people with the skills we need?"

Glatz and college officials are currently working on defining what a set of courses would look like that would prepare students to work in medical transcription.

"If they turn out people with this particular set of skills, we would definitely consider hiring them," Glatz said. "From my perspective, we’re saying that HCT could function as a valuable training arm of the company. They’re in the training business, and we’re not."

Hoyle said the college is amenable to proposals from employers of all kinds in the area.

"We want to be as flexible as we can, and we’re willing to talk to anybody about their training needs," he said.

John Harrington can be reached at 447-4080 or [email protected].