ANDERSON, Ind. — In 2007, the Revs. James Streeter and Earlie Dixon received what Streeter called a vision from God, beginning work on an initiative aiming to increase the graduation rate and rejuvenate the west side of Anderson.  Four years later, after getting the Flagship, Anderson Community Schools and Goodwill Education Initiatives’ Excel Center, along with multiple community members, involved, the Anderson Impact Center has now become a reality.

The Impact Center and its Excel Center partner will open July 25, and on Wednesday, the Impact Center board of directors celebrated its success of receiving charter approval from the Indiana State Charter Board with the community.

“Everybody is very supportive of the call, which is to help these kids at risk,” Streeter said. Together, the Impact Center and Excel Center will work to help low-performance and at-risk students as well as those who have been expelled or dropped out from the public school system, whether it be teens or adults. “Right now, believe it or not, we have a lot of children at home sitting and watching television instead of getting an education,” Streeter said.

The Impact Center has three pillars of focus: education, job training and placement and business development.

The Excel Center will run the charter school aspect of the equation; however, the Impact Center board of directors will also participate in the hiring process and student interviews.

When Dixon and Streeter met with Goodwill Education Initiatives to discuss what each party wanted, Streeter said “it was a perfect fit.”

Recruitment for the charter school will occur through community partners and ACS, who will identify students in need, Streeter said. He said the Impact Center and Excel Center want to help those who seriously want to continue their education. “We won’t be playing around with people that don’t want to learn,” he said.

Joe White, who’s helped open four Excel Centers and been a staff member since Excel’s inception, will be director of Anderson’s Excel Center. White is originally from Richmond, and said he’s spent some time in the area. He said he’s looking forward to getting started and helping those “vastly overlooked” to make “immediate impacts.”

The Impact Center has received a multitude of community support and Streeter said the Indiana State Charter Board was impressed with the center’s model. “They really want us to succeed,” he said. “This could be a template for the whole state.”

Streeter said they are different from other charters because they’re working with the public school system instead of against it. ACS Superintendent Felix Chow said, as a community member of Anderson, he’s grateful to have a group like the Impact Center board of directors. Chow said the center will help the community by providing “a new avenue we, the school district, cannot provide.”

Mayor Kevin Smith said that when it comes to Anderson, education is nearly equal in importance as the issue of jobs and economics. “Anderson stands to be a great beneficiary of your work,” he said to the board.

ANDERSON, Ind. — The Anderson Impact Center and Excel Center plan to open their doors in late July or early August.

To celebrate charter approval, the Impact Center board of directors plans to throw a public celebration and informational session Jan. 11 at 2:30 p.m. at the Flagship Enterprise Center.

The Rev. Earlie Dixon, chief operating officer of the Impact Center board, said having the school approved by the Indiana State Charter Board to open for 2012-13 “is a joy after all the work, after all the community people involved with this. It’s something (we) hope can give the community hope and a chance … a good selling point for Anderson,” he said.

The charter school is also something Dixon said he believes will help rejuvenate the west side of the city.

The Anderson Community School Corp. school board approved a resolution to sell the Robinson School building, 630 Nichol Ave., to the Impact Center for $100 on Oct. 11. ACS will be working with the center.

The Indiana State Charter Board approved the school Dec. 9.

Together, the Impact Center and its partner, Goodwill Education Initiatives’ Excel Center, will work to help low-performance and at-risk students — helping to raise graduation rates — as well as those who have dropped out or been expelled from the public school system. Dixon said their goal is to then get them back into Anderson Community Schools.

The Excel Center is leasing space from the Impact Center and will run the charter school while the Impact Center will provide social support and training, community resources and student referrals, said Scott Bess, GEI chief operating officer.

The charter school will serve a maximum of 300 students a year grades 7 through 12 and will also offer students the chance to begin a post-secondary education tuition-free. Bess said they will offer college credit classes and certification training for those not interested in a post-secondary education.

The charter school will not only serve teenagers, but adults who never received a high school degree. They will be given the chance to get their diplomas, not just a GED, Dixon said.

As for having teenagers and adults together, Bess said it’s really not an issue. He said younger students help the adults with technology while the adults can share life experiences to learn from, like living during the Vietnam War. It’s what Bess calls an “interesting dynamic.”

So the layout will be “almost like a college campus,” Dixon said.

The center will be open year-round, open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., so students can learn around their schedules.

Of course, there has to be some structure, Dixon said. There will be student coaches working with the students.

“We are hoping that this place leaves lives restored, hope revitalized in each and every one,” Dixon said, “a difference in community by education and training.” To prove that Anderson is progressing.

“The economy is already tough enough in Anderson,” Bess said, “and without a high school diploma, life is a lot rougher.”  He said the Impact Center and Excel Center will help those “hit hardest by the economy to have a fighting chance.”

It could also help the community in other ways. Bess said businesses look for an educated work force, so the better educated, the more economically attractive a community is. “(From an) economic standpoint, neighborhood perspective, community perspective, having this in place to recapture people is critical,” he said.

 

Contact Dani Palmer: 640-4847, dani.palmer@heraldbulletin.com

ANDERSON, Ind. — Business: CB Fabricating

Owner: Chris Barkdull

Location: 425 Sycamore St., Anderson; 649-1336; www.cbfabricating.com

Opened: 2006

Employees: 9

Services: CB Fabricating can do just about anything involving sheet metal.

They manufacture and weld parts in a variety of fields including medical, aviation, agricultural, automobile, electrical components and telecommunications.

Owner Chris Barkdull has been in the industry his whole life, working in the family’s business before working for a company in Indianapolis.

Barkdull just installed his newest piece of equipment — an Amada turret press — bringing the total of presses to three. The turret is used to punch out parts from sheet metal, and the new piece can handled 3/8th-inch thick sheets that are 60 feet wide by 120 feet long. The other two presses were only able to handle material 1/4-inch thick and 50 feet by 120 feet.

CB’s laser cutter can handle material 1/2-inch thick and 60-by-120 feet.

The newest turret also holds more tools allowing the business to do even more.

In the owner’s words: After working 16-hour days for an Indianapolis company, Barkdull said he decided, “I’d rather be doing this for myself.”

He purchased the building on Sycamore and during the past five years made vast improvements on it, recently rewiring the entire facility, putting on a new roof and installing a new heating system. He’s also added onto the building.

“We are trying to give back to the community,” Barkdull said, pointing to the building improvements and other efforts he’s made. “I employ work release and have been told, ‘I think you saved my life,’ by one of the guys.”

Barkdull said his beliefs are strong in the way he runs his business and prides himself on making a positive work environment.

“I’m thankful I’ve been given the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives,” he said.

But at the end of the day, Barkdull likes the work of fabricating. He’s hired someone to run the shop but said he ends up spending most of his day on the floor.

“I just like to make parts,” he said, with a smile. “I like to be able to take a sheet of metal and make something unique out of it.”

— Abbey Doyle,

The Herald Bulletin

ANDERSON, Ind. —  A new Madison County Chamber program will provide students the opportunity to get a head start in their career by connecting them with business leaders while they’re still in college.

AT&T presented the Madison County Chamber with a $5,000 contribution Wednesday afternoon to kick off a new program called Student to Pro that will get students from Anderson University, Harrison College, the Purdue University College of Technology and Ivy Tech Community College involved with the chamber.

It’s a first-time initiative, said Kyle Morey, president and CEO of the Madison County Chamber, and a big chunk of the program is all about connections.

Student representatives from each of the schools were in attendance, and many said the program will provide students with opportunities.

“I think it’s a great program. I do,”  Purdue student Jon Osborne, an organizational leadership and supervision major, said. “A sign of better things to come.”

Osborne said he’s excited about the program because it helps students look to the future. He said the program will assist in the transition from student to career, which can be scary.

Harrison business management major Michelle Fields said the program will give students the important opportunity to interact with businesses.

“Some students aren’t aware of how things work (outside the classroom),” she said.

David Lewis, director of external affairs at AT&T, said he knew from the beginning the program could become a good opportunity for those involved.

“It’s very important we invest in the future,” he said to the student representatives, “because you are the future.”

Lewis said the current work force is looking to the students to be successful.

Chamber Executive Vice President Angela Barbosa said she and Morey brainstormed and came up with the idea for Student to Pro.

Morey said they wanted to design a program that would help students “connect, learn and grow.”

According to Barbosa, the program basically offers a student membership into the chamber that will allow the students to receive newsletters, event invites, along with benefits like access to the membership database to assist in “making that connection” with business leaders.

Right now, the program is in the final stages of development and is expected to begin in January, she said.

In the future, she said, they’d like Student to Pro to be more hands-on with one-on-one interactions in what she called the tier-two level of the project, which they hope will be put into place at the beginning of the 2012 academic year.

Barbosa said they’ll help students build their résumés and make those connections, but it’s up to the students themselves to actively participate and get involved with the businesses.

Contact Dani Palmer: 640-4847, dani.palmer@heraldbulletin.com

ANDERSON, Ind. — Bright Automotive is currently looking to hire close to 30 for the Anderson-based company’s Michigan technical center as well as a handful of positions locally, a company official said.

But all hires are dependent on hopeful federal funding via a Department of Energy grant, said Dave Lauzun, Bright executive vice president of eSolutions, power train and advanced development.

“Anderson continues to be the home of our power train, e-solutions and advanced development so technical, high-tech jobs will continue to come to Anderson.”

The $450 million low-interest loan Bright has applied for through DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM) is the third they’ve applied for. The company was previously denied DOE grants of $17 million and $18 million.

The ATVM loan program began in 2007 with the establishment of an incentive program that consists of both grants and direct loans to support the development of advanced technology vehicles and associated components in the U.S.

“The loan process is still rapidly under way,” Lauzun said. “We are making progress every day. It is near impossible to pin them down on times, but things are under way.”

He said they certainly wouldn’t be posting job openings if they weren’t confident the funding would come through.

But Bright officials aren’t sitting idle waiting for the funding, Lauzun said, pointing out they are looking at all options to make the vehicle come to life to create the jobs.

The Bright IDEA is a plug-in hybrid electric work-truck marketed as a fleet vehicle. AM General, a long-established contract vehicle assembler, military vehicle manufacturer and services provider, will build the Bright IDEA in its Commercial Assembly Plant in Mishawaka, Ind., under a contract assembly agreement with Bright Automotive.

Contact Abbey Doyle: 640-4805, abbey.doyle@heraldbulletin.com