Overview
December 2000
The Puget Sound Center Starts Training!
Nearly two years have passed since the Puget Sound Center for Teaching,
Learning and Technology began operations as a startup nonprofit organization
with a mission to provide information technology and communications training.
As a collaboration between Shoreline and Edmonds community colleges,
we have been focused on providing training to help meet the long-term
regional demand for IT workers and on providing opportunities for people
who may not be able to take advantage of the programs currently available.
I'd like to give you an update on how far we have come.
Since our founding, we have raised nearly $3.6 million of the $10.0 million
needed to match a challenge grant from the Morgridge Family Foundation,
become a Cisco Regional Academy working with ten schools to provide networking
training to faculty and students, partnered with The Boeing Company to
deliver specialized training for their employees, and received nearly $2.0
million in federal grants for workforce training and faculty development
and innovation. We have opened a satellite facility with Shoreline at the
Lake Forest Park Towne Centre this fall and will have one lab at that site.
With these federal grants we are pressed to begin operations and desperately
need administrative offices and lab space. We asked the Seneca Group, respected
facilities consultants, to help us find a permanent location in the North
King or South Snohomish area. Given the short supply in the current real
estate market, nothing suitable is currently available along the I-5/Hwy
99 corridor for an interim or permanent facility, although we continue
to seek real estate that may offer us an opportunity for a permanent site.
However, the Seneca Group did locate a building in South Snohomish County
off I-405 that accommodates our interim needs. We are pleased to inform
you that the Center will be opening a facility at Canyon Park in late fall
2000. It will house our administrative offices, a lab for the Cisco Academy
training, and several general computer labs. We are very excited about
being able to start delivering services and fulfilling our obligations
under the federal grants.
This is an exciting time for the Puget Sound Center. I invite you to visit
us at 21540 - 30th Drive SE, Suite 310, Bothell, WA, and I will be pleased
to arrange a tour of the facility once we are settled. We believe the PSCTLT
will be very effective in helping address the IT worker
shortage in our region.