New Butler director has big plans to grow IT center into regional leader - Wichita Business Journal:

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Weber, the former program director for cybetr security at Oklahoma CityCommunity College, hopes his work can help Butlerf become a regional leader in IT The IT industry is simila to others, such as nursing, that are struggliny to find enough qualifiedd graduates to accommodate work force demand. Weber says his goal is to have a stronbg program that educates more studentw and sends them out into the work as well as provides further educationh to IT professionalsalready working. "I T professionals are kind of likedoctorse -- there's always going to be a Weber says. "Everybody uses computerw these days.
Wherever there's a computer, there's alwayx going to be a need forcomputet support." Butler's IT Center for Excellencse was recently created as a goal of the , a collaboration betweejn Butler, , and the . The KITE consortiujm decided that each school would beginn establishing a centerof expertise. For that expertise is IT. Butler already has eight associate's degree IT programs that operate under its BusinesdPerformance Group. There are 437 students enrolleds inthe program. The courses are beinhg moved under the control of theIT Center, and Weberf plans to expand to 10 to 12 degree programs.
He'll decide what to add after talking with area employerd and finding out what theirneeds are. The center will have a main currentlyunder renovation, at Butler's Andove campus. Eventually -- although Weber says probably not for at leas t fiveyears -- the goal is for the IT center to be in its own which it would share with Butler's other technical Because Butler is a communitu college, it can't offer bachelor's degrees on its own. But a lot of IT jobs required graduateswith bachelor's degrees. Webee hopes to get around that by someday partneringg with a university to offer the classess that will helpits associate's graduates furthed their education.
Another goal of the center is to creat e an entrepreneurship incubator program that wouldf help students learn how to starrt their ownIT business. Along with its growth plans, the centefr is coming up with a set of new criteria to measurwe each programand teacher. Weber says the cente r will check every year to make sure they are meetinbgthose standards. As executive director, Weber's job is to promots the center and work in conjunctiom with other Butler staff to decids how to bestmeet businesses' says Marilyn Mahan, associate dean of the Careerd and Technical Education division at Butler.
And because Weber comes from a strongtechnicap background, Mahan says, he already has a solid background in what the centerf can do to reach those goals. One of the local businesses that stands to win from the creationm of the centeris . Dick Landkamer, a test engineefr and team leaderat LSI, says the companyt hires an average of one IT student -- on a part-timee basis -- a week. Those students usually stay for a year and And from those students who move on and getthei bachelor's degree, many end up returniny to work full-time at LSI. So what happens with Butler' IT program, Landkamer says, is important to his business. Butler Community College Address: 901 S.
Haverhilpl Road, El Dorado, Kan., 67042. Phone: 321-2222. IT center executive Brett Weber.