What's Happening at Ranken Technical College

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.

 

 

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.

Electrical Students Get On-the-Job Training

This year for the first time, Electrical students have the opportunity to complete the wiring in one of the homes being built by the Ranken Community Development Corporation (RCDC).

For the past 17 years RCDC has been helping to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood by building homes and selling them at reasonable prices to members of the community. The program also gives Ranken students the opportunity to put what they have learned in the shop to work in a real-world environment. Carpentry, Plumbing, HVACR and recently Architectural Technology students have all had the chance to work on the homes currently being built as part of Sam Moore Estates on Evans Avenue. Electrical students have never been able to help due to the legalities of electrical work having to be performed by an electrical company that is licensed and insured.

Greg "Aussie" Thayer, an instructor in the Electrical division owns his own company called Big Bend Electric and did the electrical work on the home built last year. Thayer decided to fix the problem of electrical students not being able to work on the homes by hiring them as employees of his company.

"We had been trying to figure out a way to give our students the opportunity to work on the homes and we thought this was a good solution," said Thayer.

The students work at the house on their own time outside of classes and are paid through Thayer’s company.

"We now have six Ranken students doing the wiring on the home, which is a great opportunity for them to have work experience to put on their resume after graduation."

 

RankCAN Competition Starts In Time for Holiday Season

Each year Ranken’s department of Residential Life hosts the RankCAN competition. To start the event teams made up of faculty, staff and students collect cans and other food items and then build a creation based upon a theme. The purpose of the annual food drive and RankCAN creations event is to help feed the hungry in the St. Louis area during the holiday season and to exhibit the technical skills of our students. Over the last 11 years, the Ranken food drive has resulted in over 81,000 food products being donated throughout the local community and to Ranken students in need.

The theme for 2011 is "The Holiday Season," so team sculptures may include Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or New Year’s Eve. The food drive portion of the event has already began and teams may begin building sculptures on Monday. Winners will be announced on Monday, December 5. The team that has the best sculpture will win a pizza party as well as the team with the highest student-to-food ratio. The food collected will benefit two local church food pantries, a community group and Ranken students in need of food so find a team or teams to support with can goods or your creative mind.

"This is a really great event," said Jeremy Sutton, director of residential life. "The teams that participate always have a really great time building their sculptures and its a great way for them to show off their technical abilities. Its also a great way to help our local community."

 

RCDC Continues to Move Toward Building "Green"

Recognizing a need for housing in the community it serves, the College established the Ranken Community Development Corporation (RCDC) backed by the development expertise of SLAYCO, in April 1994. The program combines the technical skills of its students and faculty with the need for affordable housing, enhancing North St. Louis city’s neighborhoods.

The program has continued to grow and thrive over the past 17 years and the hard work of faculty, staff and students can be seen by the more than 50 new homes that have been built in the area surrounding campus. In recent years it has become an important mission of RCDC to begin to build more "green" and efficient homes. Last year the program participated in an Energy Star home inspection from Applied Science Energy Ratings (ASERusa). During the audit students were shown areas that needed improvement, then they went back and made improvements in insulation and caulking. After the final inspection done in May, the home was given an Energy Star Home rating.

The program has also started using advanced framing techniques that involve two-foot framing centers, which minimizes material usage and waste. On one of the homes being built this semester, RCDC used a product called Superior walls system which are precast concrete walls made with steel rebar, making them stronger than traditional foundations. The walls, which come pre-insulated and include features like built-in accesses for wiring and small plumbing, stud facing for easy drywall installation and custom openings for windows and doors, are more energy efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly. RCDC has also started using the ZIP System roof sheathing and wall sheathing which are structural panels with built-in protective overlays that eliminate the need for housewrap or felt forever. Siding and roof covering can be installed directly on top of the panels.

"We continue to look for new ways to build homes more efficiently," said Jeff Bosick, carpentry instructor. "A lot of these new techniques save us money while building and definitely save the homeowner money in the long run." Studies have shown that homeowners with more energy efficient homes enjoy energy bills that are approximately 30% less than average homes.

"Finding ways to build homes using more energy efficient building techniques is the right thing to do," said John Wood, vice president for student success. "Beyond that though it’s also a great learning tool for our students who will be able to go out into the work force with this knowledge and potentially teach their employer and colleagues these new building techniques."

 

 

Raffle Winners

The Alumni Association Scholarship Go Kart Raffle concluded with a drawing for winners on campus in September. Over 1,900 tickets were sold raising over $1,700 on and off campus for the scholarship project. On behalf of the Alumni Leadership Council and the Alumni Association, thanks to everyone who sold and bought tickets!

Winners were:
Go Kart - Corky Helms, retiree from Belleville, Ill.
$250 Cash-Dave Hakenewerth, 2008 ART alumnus from Mabank, Tex.
$100 Cash-Caleb Harter, Summer Academy student from Chesterfield, Mo.
$50 Cash- Shane Hipps, Riggs Construction in St. Louis, Mo.
$50 Cash-Lucas Meyer, Summer Academy student from Oakville, Mo.

 

Campus Visitor

 
Pictured L-R: John Wood, Karlos Ramirez and Janie Summers.

 
On Tuesday, September 13, Karlos Ramirez, the new executive director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan St. Louis visited campus. Ramirez met with John Wood, vice president for student success and Janie Summers, director of career services to discuss opportunities to reach the Hispanic population.

"My mission is to improve opportunities for Hispanic businesses to grow and to create economic development opportunities," said Ramirez. "We want to focus on creating a viable workforce for the St. Louis community and really try to connect businesses to the Hispanic market."

A Chicago native, Ramirez most recently was director of the university center and conference services for St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. He was also recently named as one of St. Louis Business Journal’s 2011 Diverse Business Leaders.

 

 

RCDC Using New, More Efficient Foundation

 
The Ranken Community Development Corporation (RCDC) has two new homes under construction by second-year students in the Carpentry program. The homes, located on Evans Avenue, are part of Phase II of the project known as Sam Moore Estates. The first home’s foundation was poured at the end of last year by students using the typical poured concrete method. The second home, with a slightly smaller floor plan, will have a new type of foundation using the Superior Walls system. Superior Walls are precast concrete walls created in a controlled factory environment customized to fit the blueprints and specifications provided by a builder or architect. The concrete is reinforced with steel rebar, making it stronger than traditional foundations.

"We did some research on this new type of foundation and realized it had a lot of great advantages," said John Wood, vice president for student success. "These walls are more energy efficient which saves the homeowner money in the long run, they are more sustainable and they are also more environmentally friendly than the previous method since they reduce the amount of materials needed to build the home as well as the amount of job site waste."

The walls, which come pre insulated and include features like built-in accesses for wiring and small plumbing, stud facing for easy drywall installation and custom openings for windows and doors, were delivered to the job site on Monday, August 29. The wall panels were set in place by a crane and crew members secured the walls together using a laser-level to ensure they are level and square. Joints were then sealed with special adhesive sealant. The entire process took a matter of hours instead of days spent on a poured foundation.

"We are really excited about this new process," said Bryan Hicklin, Carpentry department head. "Representatives from Superior Walls took the time to be at the installation and talked the students through the entire process. This is really a great learning experience for our students to be able to participate in this new building technique."

For more information on Superior Walls, visit their website at www.superiorwalls.com. To see more photos and videos of the installation, visit us on Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

 

APACO Sends Care Package For Joplin Technical School

Photo: Mike Hawley, director of Admissions (left) and Ron Ettling, Electrical instructor open the care package from APACO.

 
Earlier this summer Ranken’s Electrical department gathered items to send to Franklin Technology Center (FTC) which was destroyed by the tornado that hit Joplin, Mo. in May. The school was completely destroyed and has had to relocate to a warehouse in a different part of town. Renovations are underway and should be ready for classes to begin in mid-September. Along with the building, most of the school’s equipment and supplies were unsalvagable.

"We really wanted to do something to help," said Ron Ettling, Electrical instructor. "We ended up completely filling a van with electrical supplies."

Some of the supplies that the department wanted to send were missing leads and connectors so John Wood contacted APACO Electronics to purchase the supplies.

"I talked to their salesman, Tony and once he heard what we were doing, they were more than happy to donate the items," said Wood. "In fact, when we received the package there were a lot of supplies and equipment included that we hadn’t even requested."

The van load of donations was driven to Springfield, Mo. by admissions counselor Janet Ray who was met by a FTC teacher.

"They were so thrilled and appreciative of our donation," said Ray. "In fact, he couldn’t take it all in one trip, so the principal of the Joplin School District came up for the second load and wanted to personally thank us for the generous donation."

Joplin Schools continue to need help with school supplies and equipment. If your company has items to donate or you would like to make a personal donation, please visit www.joplinschools.org.