Lisa Wicoff of Allen Community College wants permission to use Riverside Park for a pilot CDL training program.
Wicoff, Dean of Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Industry at ACC, addressed Iola City Council members Tuesday evening about a potential partnership.
“One of the things we hear again and again is the need for CDL training,” said Wicoff. “Local people can not get it, or they have to drive to Wichita or Kansas City to receive the training.”
A CDL — commercial driver’s license — is required to operate large and heavy vehicles, typically semis transporting goods. The law pertaining to acquiring a CDL has changed, according to Wicoff.
“Now, 18 to 21-year-olds can drive (large vehicles) within Kansas — not outside of Kansas,” she said. “And Kansas added more community hours to the process that also complicated things. It’s not like it used to be where you could drive a farm truck around for a while, then go take a test to get your CDL. It doesn’t work like that anymore.”
To address the need, Wicoff would like to utilize the parking lot in Riverside Park.
Wicoff explained the college had previously attempted a partnership with Monarch Cement of Humboldt.
“It did not end up working out very well because we didn’t have enough people coming into the program,” she said. “It’s not something at this point that Allen can provide on our own.”
Wicoff’s goal was to look at new programs to see what the college can pilot and bring to the area. “I want to see what we can do, inexpensively, so we don’t get ourselves into a lot of equipment to try to meet the need for a small number of people,” she said.
The CDL training program Wicoff is proposing utilizing is a nationwide program. She couldn’t divulge the name of the program at the present time, due to confidentiality reasons. “They have partnered with a lot of community colleges,” she said. “The thing that interested them about Iola is that just down the road in Chanute is a driver’s license facility they can test at. Also, the proximity to the highway. While they’ll do their backing and turning in the parking lot, most of what they do is highway miles.”
The MOU requests the city allow the college to use Riverside Park’s parking lot for a year. “This would give us time, as we partner with the third party,” she said. Wicoff noted the third party is a for-profit school that does the training, paperwork, and financing of the students. “At Allen, we would provide them with a classroom,” she continued. “They would provide a minimum of two employees — someone to manage the program and at least one instructor, depending on the size of the program.”
“We’re not really making any money on the program,” Wicoff said. “What we are doing is providing an opportunity for local people to study and obtain their license in what we call a ‘high wage, high need’ area.”
“Truck driving is a high wage and high need job, especially with the construction of all the warehouses and distribution centers,” she added. “We have a lot of competition for drivers, locally.”
APRIL WHITE, vice-president of workforce development with the Kansas Board of Regents, recently gave a presentation of statistics to the ACC board of directors. According to White, an average truck driver can make a starting wage anywhere from $38,000 to $60,000 a year with a four-week training program.
Wicoff said $38,000 a year is considered a high wage in Kansas.
