KALISPELL — Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell recently received in total $3.5 million from donors Gill and Joyce Lynch, Bill and Sue Schottelkorb and Mike Kartsonis to help expand and renovate the existing Trades Institute — while also adding scholarship opportunities.
“Offer more opportunities for the students and expand those opportunities to other trades, is big news for all of us,” Director of Trades Institute Blake Thompson said.
Thompson said there is currently a wait-list to join several different course programs.
“That’s another reason for the excitement right, to be a part of the expansion to be able to provide more opportunities with the growth along with it," Thompson said.
The Trades Institute prepares students for high-demand, high-wage careers across construction, welding, HVAC, manufacturing, surveying and more.
“This philanthropy is transformational in that it opens up that bottleneck; we have a lot of students that want to get into programs that are currently full, and we have a great need in our community and our country for these skills,” said Tagen Vine, the Executive Director of Flathead Valley Community College Foundation.
Vine said expansion is still in the preliminary stages, but the hope is to double enrollment totals by adding classroom space.
“We’ve added several new programs over these last couple of years, so those programs need space, and also updating the technology and the tools that are available to our students, so that they can be ready for the future you know of all of these skilled trades," Vine said.
