n years past, businesses dealt with their shortage of qualified employees through a combination of wishful thinking and cutthroat recruiting. Now, however, a model of collaboration is being developed between Georgia’s technical colleges and Georgia’s businesses that benefits both technical college students — who usually graduate straight into a good job — and Georgia’s businesses, which have a guaranteed source of talent and skill.

This new model of collaboration is — in the words that everyone inevitably uses when describing these innovative relationships — a “win-win.”

Mark Haney, vice president of professional services at WellStar Health
Systems, has firsthand experience. When his company found itself facing
the ever-growing demand for the use of imaging technology in health
care — X-rays, MRIs, CT scans — it looked for the best solution to the shortage of trained radiology technologists. At first, administrators at this five-hospital, not-for-profit health system operating in the northwest metro Atlanta area considered starting up their own Radiologic Technology program.

Then they got a better idea.

“I realized we could start a program that would benefit both the students and WellStar,” says Haney, who is also on the local board of North Metro Technical College. Students would have jobs waiting for them after graduation, and WellStar would have a well-trained workforce. It was a perfect fit.

“Once we recognized the need, we worked quickly to create a program within months so WellStar could benefit from a pool of trained applicants,” says North Metro Tech President Steve Dougherty. (For more on the partnership, see President’s Perspective.)

“For both North Metro students and WellStar,” Haney says, repeating the mantra of this model of collaboration between businesses and Georgia’s technical colleges, “it’s a win-win.”

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