By Jason Dooley, jdooley@bgdailynews.com -- 270-781-1700

Work begins in earnest this month on Bowling Green Technical College's capital campaign to raise funds and community awareness about the college and its services.

Lowell Guthrie, CEO of Trace Die Cast in Bowling Green and campaign chair, said the fund-raising goal for the initiative has not yet been set.

"This is about more than just raising money, although obviously that is important," Guthrie said. "But also, we want to let people in the community know about the college and the services we provide."

BGTC, part of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, has seen unprecedented growth over the past five years and is hoping to build on that momentum with the capital campaign, the first in the school's history.

The campaign is the brainchild of BGTC President Jack Thomas, who has asked the committee to look deeply at the college and its mission as they move forward, Guthrie said.

"Some of the questions we're looking at are how we can raise the bar for our success and how we can make our campus better and more valuable to the community," he said.

The campaign's theme is Fulfilling the Promise, a phrase chosen to represent the determination by BGTC to raise the quality of life in Bowling Green and throughout southcentral Kentucky, Thomas said.

"We feel like this is a major step in our mission to become one of the top technical colleges in the southeastern United States," he said. "We feel that by doing that, we'll be able to better serve our students, our faculty and the community."

A feasibility study done late last year in preparation for the campaign identified four primary goals for the initiative, said Donna Martin, BGTC director of institutional advancement.

Among those goals are equipment and technology enhancements, expansion and enhancement of the allied health program, increasing the college's endowment and building a scholarship endowment to provide financial aid to students, Martin said.

"These were identified during the planning process and supported by community leaders," she said. "They will be some of the things we'll really be promoting as we move forward with this campaign."

In addition to providing an alternative to four-year colleges and universities for recent high school graduates, BGTC offers continuing education opportunities for many non-traditional students and for those already in the workforce, Martin said.

"With technology changing as quickly as it does these days, lifelong learning is becoming more and more important," she said. "As part of this campaign, we want to let people know that we are there to provide that service."

Over the next few years, many thousands of new jobs will be coming to this region, and BGTC can play a major role in helping to attract new industries and then providing training for employers who do locate here, Guthrie said.

"One of the major things that employers look at when they're considering where to locate their facilities is availability of continued education for their workers," he said. "It was important to (Trace Die Cast) when we decided to come here, and it will continue to be important."

Guthrie points to Magna, the new factory that will be the first tenant at the Kentucky TriModal Transpark, as an example of the type of companies that will utilize the training center planned for the transpark cite, which BGTC and Western Kentucky University will cooperate to run.

"Dr. Thomas was involved in the negotiations with Magna from the very beginning, and I think Bowling Green Technical College being here to provide training was a major factor in their decision," he said. "That just shows that he's been working on and thinking about this campaign for a long time."

Western just completed a five-year capital campaign, bringing more than $100 million in endowments and gifts into the university's coffers, and its success helps give BGTC even more confidence going into its own campaign, Guthrie said.

"The success that Western had just shows that people in this area are willing to support good projects that change lives in this region," he said. "We think they'll be happy to support us in the same way."