Sullivan BOCES held a grand opening celebration and ribbon cutting for its new welding lab in the Ag-Mech H Building of the Rubin Pollack Education Center on Monday evening. The event was well attended with prominent members of BOCES and the Sullivan County school districts, county and state representatives and students coming together to celebrate the new addition to the educational service agency. 

“When I started here seven years ago, we were closing this program,” said Sullivan BOCES Superintendent Robert Dufour. “We were under-supervised and under-enrolled; one change caused everything to take a turn and move forward. That one change is the key point of all of our programs here at Sullivan BOCES, and that’s the instructor, Nick Conklin.”

Dufour stated that when Conklin took the welding program over, their enrollment started going through the roof. In other words, the program forged forward. 

“We are now fully subscribed with 25 students in the morning and 25 students in the afternoon,” Dufour noted. “And we have a waitlist.”

Dufour also talked about the space that the Welding Lab now occupies and said that it had previously been a compilation of hastily erected walls that divided it into three separate spaces.

“After over three-and-a-half years of planning and construction, we now have a truly state-of-the-art welding lab,” Dufour said. “What you see around may not look like much, but this is over a million-dollar investment.”

Dufour recalled that the project, which got started two-and-a-half years ago with the planning, completed construction quickly. He said that they were able to get kids in the lab by the second week of school after beginning work on June 1. 

“We got the final sign-offs on all the equipment two and a half weeks ago,” stated Dufour. “That is a record for projects we have worked on before, and we are very pleased that we were able to get the students in here very close to the beginning of the school year.”

The President of Sullivan BOCES Board of Education, Linda Berkowitz, also stood at the podium to speak about the new welding lab and reiterated most of what Dufour said, noting that the program was dying and is now one of their most well-attended programs. 

New York State Senator Peter Oberacker (NY-51) along with his legislative aide Camille O’Brien were in attendance as well as Legislative Chair Nadia Rajsz and retiring Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther.

“Career and Tech programs here at Sullivan BOCES have some of the most vital courses in the state of New York,” said Gunther. “It is a blessing that students have the opportunity to come learn a trade that will not only put food on the table and money in their pockets, but also build out some of the most desperately needed workforces in the country. Welders are one of the most essential professions that exist today.”

“This is an amazing day,” Oberacker said. “There are things that I have to do. Then there are things I’d like to do. This is one of the what I would like to do column.”

Forging a future

A partnership is also being forged between BOCES and SUNY Sullivan through the efforts of the college’s new President, Dr. David Potash, Sullivan County Division of Community Services Commissioner Laura Quigley and Rajsz, to make the facilities of Sullivan BOCES available to not only students during the day, but for adult learners during the evening, on weekends and during the summer. 

“It is critical that we prepare students for the working world, and it is especially important that we offer training to people who want to work with their hands,” Rajsz said. “I am proud to be part of county legislation that has partnered with BOCES to offer the training, including the welding courses to our adult workforce. 

“I look forward to this lab being used by both BOCES students and also local adults whose tuition and county will pay for,” Rajsz continued. “Not only do we want people living here, we want them to make a living here as well.”

Dufour said that they have begun to plan meetings between SUNY Sullivan and Workforce Development to take their pilot programs such as welding and building trades and make them regularly scheduled programs available to the adult learners of Sullivan County. 

Career and Technical Education Principal, Katie Wilcox, introduced the students before the official ribbon cutting took place. Dufour noted that Deputy Superintendent of BOCES, Susan Schmidt oversaw all aspects of the project. 

Following the speakers and the ribbon cutting, the welding students put on demonstrations around the room which many of the guests watched and asked questions.

Culinary students of Sullivan BOCES prepared the food spread for the guests of the event to enjoy, which included flatbread, sliders, fruit, vegetables and cookies.