welcome to new beginnings and i am so pleased to have two returning guess rebecca corbin who is president of the national association of community colleges and entrepreneurship and  a documentarian and together they have done a part two as they promised they would go into kentucky to interview former coal miners who are reinventing and  reengineering for a new career so welcome thank you i'm so pleased to have you back and as i was saying before we started the part one segment was picked up by patrick henry university and they live so love the work that you did that they wanted to get the clip to share with their president so we were quite thrilled at the station to get the call and to do the outreach s that work can be given to them and they were going to put it on their web site so i can't wait to see what happens with this issue of georgia the station manager called me and he said great news he said people in adelaide should have seen this show would they want the working together and other working on these projects so you're right it does have that ripple effect and it's the power of stories you know to really transform mine think community so since we were here the last time we were working closely with the appalachian regional commission on some goals and they thought it was very important and supported our work in telling the story of how community colleges in the kentucky region are responding to the co layoffs so i called janice and i said if we're going to do this we have to do it do it quickly but do it very meaningful and i think we got such a good response on the first one so really the story is about big sandy community pikeville area of kentucky and they have a new president there and he really has sees the entrepreneurial spirit and is working very diligently not only with the existing community but  off coal miners to try to train them for jobs where which are high paying that can sustain families but also open up a variety of career so some of them are coders some of them are training to be truck drivers some of them are falling traditional academic paths so janice captured the story and i think it really resonates it resonates globally but certainly here in new jersey where you know in communities people face challenges as you know s obviously the whole notion of coal versus stay in a bowl energy clean energy is part of the election cycle but how are people feeling about this transition in terms of what you document well you know when we did and then we started you know hearing more in the news we thought well we're really very troubling but you know i don't think that they're necessarily thinking about a politically were we were they were thinking about it for the community and  tried to basically paint the picture of what the economics of what the area was like you know the whole you know there are a lot of out of work coal miners and we actually captured a few just on the street walking around and you know it's an interesting area because it's the home of the hadfield mccoy you so it has a lot of history you know that we show the cut through we showed a number of the things in that area and what they did to try to make the area work because there was flooding downtown and they did this cut through to move the water out so that that would not be the case so it's an interesting opportunity at the college because what the president is doing is clearly focusing on what are we going to do with the out of work coal miners and building this whole you know broadband you know new center there but they're also working on other entrepreneurial activities and we showed a little bit of that we you know we were in an area where they were training people to be beauticians and you know the thought is well you know is a beautician really an entrepreneur but you know if they open up their own shop and they certainly are and you know we had a chance to meet a woman who it was her dream to be able to do that and she did kinds of that and another young woman who was working you know in sort of lower paying jobs who really wanted to get an education to do something else and she always wanted to help people she became a nurse and so you know so it shows that there are other things that the community colleges are doing you know to be entrepreneurial and i think we also showed you know respect he was saying it's not just trying to have them become coders but you know trying to offer opportunities and training so they can look at other ways to make a living  you know with cold you know after call right i wonder is there a recognition and you talked about you know filling a dream mining coal is a dangerous job and we already know that they're lung cancer you know whether whether they accept that or not but there's certainly a linkage so the things that you're talking about sure there may be some hazards but being beat ition a code or this is above ground work i mean is there any are they lamenting that they're not going to be coal miners are they for because that's what you hear or are the bracing i'm going to be above ground i could do things and i could be safe where i could be helped you're my family won't have to worry if you don't you know what i'm saying i mean is there a recognition of that or is it more resentment i think and carry through here what you have to say about this i think it's that mindset shift i know with some of the folks that we've interacted with it's that's all they've ever known and they come from families of coal miners generation and generations and they grow up and they're not thinking that they have options so there are certainly ones and it's a number of really big successes that came out of you know  big sandy but you know some of the people tried something and nationally first i know you interviewed one man who thought he want to be a truck driver but then he didn't like being away from home that often so that exploration process i think many of us go through in our in the course of our lives they don't have that tradition of doing it so i have seen some people you know really embrace it i think the college has a very welcoming supportive and environment in this janice said there's a lot of different options you don't have to be a coder you can do a number of different things but just getting some some skills around you know of course there's always folks that you know resist change in every every you know situation so that i know you've got close to i think talking with some of them well we spent some time in that source which is the company that was founded by a gentleman justice who also was a you know involved in coal for many many years and he decided that he you know he was looking at what was going on in the industry and he decided something else had happened and he is you know came up with this idea of doing coding websites and all this and you know people at first i think looked at him like you know  know he saw skills in the people and you know he ran a radio ad and had a tremendous response to the radio and looking for people that were you know basically out of work coal miners because he knew that they had the right temperament and could apply the skills that they had to this type of work and actually what he's been doing i mean you know the problem with doing these videos is you never have enough time to be able to tell it what is the story you want to tell you know he's been featured in newspapers and on m p r they did a radio interview with him and so you know what he's doing i think is is great i mean you know unfortunately he doesn't employ hundreds of people yeah that's right but he's not maybe he well because it's been successful one of them may be a model that others you know can can build upon absolutely absolutely and that's a perfect segue as we talk once before what you're doing in community colleges  to help people have the opportunity to shift from what they've always known to realizing that maybe i could do my dream job and i think is so powerful  it just so happens last sunday i met the president mercer county community college ok and she was talking about attracting more people how she's getting people who are choosing community college out of high school you know particularly if they don't know what they want to do and their parents are saying you know what for forty or fifty or sixty thousand dollars i'd rather pay with a community college offers for you to figure that out so that the last two years can be meaningful and then you know not that we're wasting money but you know we're being cost efficient but she also said that she's attracting a number of adults who are trying to year and really figure out what they want to do and they could be people who have retired that are not ready to kind of put their feet up on the desk they could be people who were let go they're laid off and i'm wondering is that what you're continuing to see not just in kentucky but because i know you have the oversight across the country well i'm so glad you brought that up there's a couple things that come to mind i was yesterday at the community college of philadelphia meeting with president generals and his staff and they're doing some amazing work just right across the river here with the goldman sachs program and i don't know if you know that much about that but they're creating a number of very robust successful businesses by following a very disciplined practice and they are engaging with the city of philadelphia in terms of leveraging city resources  so it's an amazing model similar it sounds like the mindset that's going on at mercer and next week i'll have the chance to meet with the new president of camden county college president don borden so he starts his job july first so i'm thrilled that out in the first week candy you know like you said this is an area that you know is has some tremendous you know beautiful natural resources they report about on the news but it has some tremendous problems so looking at urban environments we were speaking with dr generals about that yesterday and intend to speak with the new president of camden about how can we take what we're doing in rural areas and really apply some of that in urban areas there's a lot of similarities believe it or not between the two the other thing i wanted to point out we've have ongoing conversations with the a a r p foundation and we're really excited to announce in july there's going to be a series of grants that are available at community colleges and organizations can apply for them and it's about training the nontraditional worker and doing that outreach so there are smaller grants in the  form of ten to fifteen thousand dollars but i'm really hoping that a lot of the community colleges in new jersey and surrounding states apply for those because that's been some of the things that that janet has janice has captured in her documentary but a lot of the success that we've had in giving communities and community colleges small amounts of money but they spark ideas and sometimes you don't need you don't need a million dollars but if you have ten or fifteen thousand dollars you have enough money you can convene a group you might be able to buy a little bit of a quick minute and things like that so certainly there's a lot going on in this region and we expect that relationship with the a a r p foundation to grow we're going to meet with them in c later this summer to talk about collaboration so what you're hearing is exactly what we're hearing on the national front so it's that it's exciting and so the a a r p is this a national liberal this is the local new jersey check this is  mission is really to support you know older you know nontraditional people but what they're seeing is that somebody may get a buyout or have an early retirement at age fifty or fifty five and we all know how we could really teach people how to be very careful and thoughtful in terms of from thought to prototyping to launch and make sure that sort of their investment strategies they're not putting their retirement at risk or their homes at risk and with some of the changing laws it's becoming easier to use you know our platforms like kickstarter and others you don't need to have a million dollars to invest in a business so it's an exciting time and all those resources are available to new jersey so that's one part of the mission that janice and i are on to him is to make sure that our you know our community colleges in the state and beyond know about those resources and really get on board and a lot of them are ocean county  three is taking the intergenerational you know the wisdom of the woods who are professionals you know regardless of whether they were in the office or on the plant floor but their skills and their knowledge and hearing met with this younger generation and see what happens i'm sure some of that came up in what you did in kentucky but i think that obviously could be replicated elsewhere because to your point there are people who have skills and knowledge this can transfer those skill that can apply them and you have used who are eager maybe not as well so and i think what becky does is she's working with some really innovative college presidents and i think part of it is the enthusiasm that you're seeing on the ground unities you know look forward to having a chance to to work with more of them to tell the compelling stories about what they're doing in this area absolutely you know it's interesting and i found you know we have about three hundred community college presidents engaged with macy's certainly some of them are really  some less so but what i find is they're very you know well educated thoughtful people but they're willing to get down in the weeds and you know work right alongside of everybody else to get things done and one of the things that we've been working on with sea board is really getting the message out about what is the value of entrepreneurship as a leadership strategy for presidents so we convened an interview with a magazine it was it was a group interview the editor  chief had suggested it so we had three different community college presidents are retired one a brand new one and one that had served for a while talking very candidly about what's the value what's the risk and what's the reward and it was just very powerful so we're going to be releasing some of that information in the fall and just really you know our focus is not just the early adopter presidents but it's those who might be in the middle and aren't really sure and we find by connecting them with one another you can build this network of like minded peers where you can strengthen each other and share ideas and everybody benefits the community the coal miners didn't know the we're working with community colleges like big sandy in kentucky to promote economic vitality  pikeville is a mountainous area in eastern kentucky steeped in history and tourism the hatfill mccoy feud took place nearly exclusively here in pike county in the eastern kentucky and it changed this region for nearly a century our cities located in a flood plain and had flood constantly about every twenty years so for this community to develop and flourish we had to get the river out of the city the entrepreneurial solution in the one nine hundred seventy s was the cut through an engineering wonder that diverted the river took the railroad and the highway out of the city and allowed for industry and tourism to flourish today however pikeville and the surrounding communities are experiencing an economic crisis that is severely impacting the quality of life in this region the downturn in the coal industry has sucked the life out of this region like a vacuum it promised so it's such a possibility out of here currently the economy is in pretty dire straits many jobs are being lost and as those jobs are being offered as nowhere for those families to replace that income those me mostly me in the work in the mines are earning close to one hundred thousand dollars or more and now we've had ten thousand of those jobs lost as the cut through solve the problem of flooding in the one nine hundred seventy s many believe that an emphasis source a web solution development company he spent his career in the coal industry and knew that the unemployed coal miners he worked with in the mines could apply their skills elsewhere oh all the men and women would work with over a career for really hot tech workers but just kind of got dirty in their jobs with they had the skills to this area to transition into a new line of work big sandy community and technical college is building kentucky's first broadband technology center president stevenson thinks it will be the key to creating new career paths for laid off workers were building a five million dollar advance technology center the only one of its kind with fiber to desk in pikeville kentucky home of the  mccoys so we're becoming a place that does fast track training for high speed jobs president stephenson is gathering key partners like charles sexton of one east kentucky to help diversify the economy providing office space and collaboration this whole speaking about broadband the biggest thing that we can do with the broadband in addition to providing a utility that's necessary is we're opening up the ability for folks to have that entrepreneurial innovation a desire to stay in eastern kentucky lead laid off coal miner charles carberry to big sandy community and technical college i took the commercial truck driving program and after completion of there a fan out there that was going to take me away from home you know i would be gone for at least a week two weeks at a time and decided that that's not the career path that i wanted to go in railroad it's not just tied down to one particular drug or career path we can be a technology economy here in the mountains that we that are our displaced workers are just no quote unquote blue collar workers that they are they can work in the tech industry at preston berg's former mountaintop strip mine is now a popular golf course we're trying to avoid an area destination not just an area to come to a dawkins rails to trails project with tunnels is designed to give new tourists that are expected to visit the region as a result big sandy community and technical college offers students a variety of entrepreneurial opportunities and career paths some folks that we have at our colleges that are entrepreneurs already and maybe just they never thought to call themselves an entrepreneur so to speak we have a cosmetology department who graduates entrepreneurs every year they are self employed women who who have great jobs and thing that has ever happened to me sad i'm just trying to work at it trying to make the best of it it's just been it's been awesome big sandy community and technical college gave maria wilson a chance to go from making minimum wage to an occupation where she could support herself and her child i went from work our first floor to being a nurse because i wanted to help people i was sick as a child my grandmother was really sick she was in all the hospital i got to watch the nurses kind of come and go out of her room out of my hillbillies but we're proud of that we're proud of our work ethic we're proud of our honesty we're proud of our strong family values and for me that makes a wonderful wonderful employee it makes wonderful people trying to do great things in this region the endgame for the college from my perspective is producing a very effective student that can not only leave this college with an education a career they can also go out and create a job for themselves so if our institution can be a catalyst if the if we can be a stimulus if we can be a motivator into the big picture of transforming this region then we feel like we've accomplished our mission this video was made possible through support from the appalachian regional commission for more information about an ac visit us online at any c c dot com that was amazing i was severely enjoy the you know what you are filmed and tell us you know what was the most compelling story for you janice you know it's pretty hard to one that's the most compelling story because i think each of the people we talked to you know just the fact that they were able to you know i mean the woman who opened her own beauty shop you know what it you know one thing to to be able to you know have your dream and the young woman that wanted to become a nurse and you know just the former coal miners to see were sources doing i think it's all it was all very interesting and i think for me it was seeing a different part of the country that i'd never been to before and you know understanding that it was a community that was so reliant on coal and the fact that people had to start thinking differently and they had to think more in an entrepreneurial fashion and what you know big thing andy is going to be able to you know maybe seeing some other really exciting new businesses crop up there wonderful wonderful are there plans to do a follow up at some point we would like to fact that's what we're talking about it's getting the funding to do it and i'll tell you the interesting thing terms of documentaries which is really genesis expertise is that you sort of look at the story over time and the cole documentary that you were kind enough to bring us on to talk about takes hopefully it won't take a generation but it will take five or ten years and you'll start to see some of the trying as for mation you know slowly it's it's like you know garden a lot of the root structure gets built underneath what i just think you both for returning and bringing in this powerful documentary and the work that you're doing to communicate what's available and to change people's lives because that's really what you're doing so thank you again and rebecca and janice and thank you for tuning in to new beginning