What's Happening at Ranken Technical College

College Closing for Holiday Break

Ranken will be closed for holiday break from December 22 through January 2. The Admissions office and the Student Achievement Center will be open during the below hours for counseling and testing. No tours will be available during break:
Thursday 22nd 9am -3pm
Friday 23rd 9am – 3pm
Tuesday 27th 9am – 3pm
Wednesday 28th 9am – 3pm
Thursday 29th 9am – 3pm
Friday 30th 9am – 3pm

Boeing Senior Managers Visit Campus, bioMeriuex Site

Photo: Sean Walsh, Al Parker, and Mark Franzoi discussed Ranken’s micro enterprise efforts with Vince Holtmann, faculty project manager.

 

Sean Walsh and Mark Franzoi both senior managers from the Boeing Company’s Defense, Space & Security Division located in St. Louis, Mo., visited Ranken on Thursday, December 15.

Walsh and Franzoi toured campus and were briefed on Ranken’s new National Science Foundation sponsored grants and our vision for a workforce "pipeline."

They then visited the work site for bioMerieux located in the Mary Ann Lee Technology to learn more about the College’s new innovative micro-enterprise program and how these industry partnerships help to accomplish the goal of creating a future high-tech workforce in the St. Louis region.

 

Precision Machining S-STEM Students Visit Ehrhardt Tool & Machine

Photo: PMT S-STEM students tour Ehrhardt Tool and Machine. Students in photo include: Josh Chavez, Dan Day, Joe Castilleja, Steven Thomas, Vernon Winn, Ryan Kruckeberg, and Rob Harnack

On Friday, December 9 the PMT S-STEM recipients and Brian Austwick, PMT instructor participated in a presentation and tour of Ehrhardt Tool and Machine Company, Inc. in Granite City Ill.

Duane Moody, who has been employed at Ehrhardt fo 34 years, gave a presentation on the history of the company then Scott Stephan (1993 PMT), plant manager and Brandon Austin (2006 PMT) gave an excellent presentation on leadership. Their leadership values consisted of the following: employee attitude, vision, people skills, keeping an open mind, understanding that you always have more to learn, push yourself don’t just get by.

Seven PMT students attended the event and throughout the tour ran into many Ranken PMT alumini including Steve Biesk, Rich Dauphin, Scott Hunter, Sam Rauch, Dustin Vogoele, Mike Christy and Jason Medlock.

"The reason I chose Ehrhardt for the tour was to show current PMT students that there is a huge opportunity to advance in the machining trade," said Austwick. "We saw Ranken alumni working at all levels at the company from just starting out to running the operations."

Founded in 1937 by Willis Ehrhardt, Ehrhardt Tool & Machine Company, Inc., is a precision, contract, tool, die and special machine builder. The company is now employee-owned and is one of Alco Industries, Inc.’s operating companies.

The modern, fully air-conditioned 82,000 square feet facility is located on five acres in an industrial park setting. Operating on two shifts, Ehrhardt currently employees over sixty Tool and Die Makers, Machinists and Machine Operators, as well as seven Design Engineers, four Sales Estimators and a full office support staff. Ehrhardt boasts a weekly labor hour throughput in excess of 3,200 hours.

 

 

IT Donates to Damaged Pike-Lincoln Technical Center

Photo L-R: Janet Ray, admissions counselor, Charles Corrigan, IT department head and Tom McCraken, Winfield High School principal.

Pike-Lincoln Technical Center (PLTC), located in Eolia, Mo., is an educational institution designed to offer career, technical, and community education to residents of Pike, Lincoln and surrounding counties.

The Technical Center began as an outgrowth of the need for vocational training in Northeast Missouri in the late 1960’s. PLTC is considered a showcase for technical training across the state and region. The Pike County R-III (Clopton) School District is the fiscal agent of PLTC but students attend from seven area schools including: Bowling Green R-I, Louisiana R-II, Clopton, Silex R-I, Elsberry R-II, Troy R-III, and Winfield R-IV. Adult students from the surrounding counties also take courses at PLTC in the day and evening.

On the evening of December 2, tragedy struck when a fire engulfed the main building of the school. Thankfully classes had ended and no one was in the building at the time of the fire. The schools newer Diesel and Automotive Technology Building was also undamaged.

It took a few days to assess the damage and create a game plan, but PLTC bounced back quickly and classes resumed on December 9 using the recently closed Clopton Middle School which is now the new site for the technical center.

On December 8, Tom McCracken, the principal of Winfield High School brought a group of students from PLTC to tour Ranken. During their tour they met Charles Corrigan, Ranken’s IT department head who presented them with several Cisco switches donated by the department.

"We have had a good relationship with Pike-Lincoln for several years," said Corrigan. "They are starting from scratch and this was the least we could do to help them get back on their feet."

 

RCDC Working on Energy Star Rating for New Homes

On December 5, Ryan Bennett from ASERUSA performed preliminary inspection of the two new homes being built on Evans Avenue for the V2.5 Energy Star rating.

To earn the ENERGY STAR, a home must meet strict guidelines for energy efficiency set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. These homes are at least 15% more energy efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Residential Code (IRC), and include additional energy-saving features that typically make them 20–30% more efficient than standard homes.

Ranken began partnering with the EPA last year. Through this partnership RCDC agrees to affix an ENERGY STAR label on homes that are independently verified to meet program guidelines and to build at least one ENERGY STAR qualified home every 12 months to maintain their partnership. Through the Partnership Agreement process, the builder also selects a Home Energy Rater to work with to qualify their homes.

RCDC had to submit the architectural plans to their home energy rater for review and analysis. The rater looked for key information on the plans and helped them choose the best combination of energy–efficient features to ensure that the home will earn the ENERGY STAR label when constructed.

Throughout the construction process, the rater will perform a number of inspections and diagnostic tests to verify the proper installation of the selected energy–efficient features and overall energy performance of the home.

When Bennett came to the site to check the installation of wall insulation he commented that the RCDC students had done a better job than he usually sees with most professional installers.

"When these homes are sold, the new owners will enjoy lower energy bills from now on as a result of the work that our construction students are doing today," said John Wood, vice president for Student Success.

"This Energy Star rating means that the heating and cooling bills will be 1/3 less than that of the average American home built today."

 

Ranken Sponsoring St. Louis' Arch Rival Roller Girls

Ranken is sponsoring St. Louis’s Arch Rival Roller Girls again this season! They’ve moved to a new and larger venue, the Midwest Sports Complex at Queeny Park, and this year’s championship bout will be held at Chaifetz Arena. Arch Rival Roller Girls, LLC (ARRG) is St. Louis’ first and only Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) certified all-female flat-track roller derby league. ARRG is made up of four local teams - The M-80s, The Rebel Skate Alliance, The Smashinistas, and The Stunt Devils. They also field two travel teams, our ARRG All-Stars and the Saint Lunachix.

On Saturday, December 3 Abe Brummett, admissions counselor, and Patsy Zettler, general education department chair, were Ranken representatives at the Arch Rival Roller Girls bout at the Midwest Sports Complex in Ballwin, Missouri. After the first bout, when the Smashinistas beat the Rebel Skate Alliance (RSA) 123 to 103, Abe and Patsy posed for the above photo with Ginny Beastly of the RSA and Shimmy Hoffa of the Smashinistas. The next bout will be Saturday, January 14, 2012.

 

 

S-STEM Students Volunteer With Habitat For Humanity

On November 19, eight S-STEM students volunteered eight hours with Habitat for Humanity St. Louis. S-STEM, a National Science Foundation scholarship grant, not only helps students financially but also helps build character skills which will help them further succeed.

Students spent much of the day setting up scaffolding and installing siding on homes located in north St. Louis. This semester the students have been focused on team building and this experience allowed them to use those skills. Taryn Underwood, a first semester S-STEM student studying architecture said, "We learned how easy, yet time consuming, putting up siding is and also that there is a pattern in which siding must be hung."

"I am continually impressed with our S-STEM students and how they are always willing to participate in events that really make a difference in our community," said Missy Borchardt, the principle investigator of the S-STEM program.

 

INT/PLC Team Takes First in Annual RankCAN Competition

Beginning in November, Ranken students, faculty and staff began collecting donated food items to kick off the 2011 Food Drive and RankCAN competition.

Once the items were collected, students formed teams to begin building sculptures with the food items around the theme, "The Holiday Season."

All sculptures were to represent an object, person, character or concept associated with one of the holidays occurring during the "holiday season." This could include Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve or Halloween. The teams were judged on their sculpture as well as how many food items they collected. The winners were announced on Monday, December 5.

This year the team from Industrial Technology and PLC’s won the sculpture competition with their "Polar Express" display and also had the highest student-to-food ratio with 68 per students. HVACR came in second with their "Cool Christmas" display.

The INT/PLC’s team will receive a pizza party. A special thanks to Rose Crawford, Ken Meyer, and Kathy Fern for judging the sculptures. Thank you to everyone who participated this year. The 2011 RankCAN competition helped collect more than 8,500 food products, which will be donated to local food pantries for needy families as well as Ranken students in need.

Single Mother Finds New Career and Direction at Ranken

Being a single mother is hard work. Being a single mother with limited career options and mounting debt is even harder. Just ask Jenn Wall. She found herself worrying constantly about how things were going to work out, how to pay the bills and whether to buy gas or groceries. “The only constants in my life were my amazing family (Mom, Dad and brother) and worry. I tried to do it all alone and not let anyone else worry about me,” said Wall. But with only a high school education and little financial resources, she soon fell into debt, forced to pay for necessities with credit. Her life seemed like one endless spiral.

Read the full story at the St. Louis Women's Journal

Automotive Installs New State-of-the-Art Equipment

Automotive Maintenance recently installed new equipment from Hunter Engineering in their shop. The new additions include tire changers, wheel balancers and alignment systems. This week a representative from Hunter came to campus to do a training session for the Automotive instructors and some second-year students.

The Hawkeye Alignment System features WinAlign software that fully integrates the functions of the console, sensors and lift into one highly efficient alignment system.

The up-to-date balancers have upgraded features that improve productivity and help service today’s challenging wheel assemblies with unique tools such as the TPMSpecs™ database, VIN scanning capability, automatic cost-savings tracking, and the Road Force® audit.

The newest version of their tire changer includes a leverless tool head that eliminates tire and rim damage, side storage for accessories, center-clamp design which can accommodate a wide range of diameters and a bead press arm which aids in mounting and dismounting.

"We feel really fortunate to have this type and amount of equipment in our shop," said Dan Kania, Automotive division chair. "Of course its a great benefit to our students to have the latest equipment to learn on but it also helps local tire sales companies like Dobbs and Firestone by having well-trained graduates available to hire in their stores."

"This all came about by a collaboration between Hunter and Stan Shoun and we can’t
thank them enough for giving our students this opportunity."

For more information on Hunter Engineering and their products, visit www.hunter.com.