Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Open Board of Directors Meeting
San Bernardino Community College District
114 S. Del Rosa Drive
San Bernardino, CA 92408
Minutes
Present: Deborah Barmack, Carole Beswick, Tom Brickley, Erin Brinker, Ken Coate, Deborah Crowley, Bill Easley, Scott Hofferber, Matthew Isaac, Mark Kaenel, Pam Langford, Sue McKee, John Mirau, Bev Powell, Brian Reider, Susan Rice, Kristine Scott, Paul Shimoff and A.J. Wilson.
Announcements: 1) A.J. Wilson will step down as Executive Director, San Bernardino International Airport on June 30, 2014. Appreciation for his work and congratulations on his return to retirement were expressed.
M/S/P: Minutes from June 10, 2014.
Beverly Powell introduced Linda Smith, Owner and Founder, Four-D College. Four-D College is a vocational career college that prepares students for entry-level health care employment.
The college is the first and only African American owned facility in California fully accredited and licensed to teach Vocational Nursing and other allied health care programs such as Medical Assistant, Medical Billing/Coding, Health Care Administration, Dental Assistant, Pharmacy Technician and Massage Therapy.
Concerned about the difficult challenges African American girls faced trying to get into health care programs, Ms. Smith began a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program. Ms. Smith explained that in order to be successful four D’s are needed: desire, determination, drive and deliver. Inspired by her faith she effectively used these principals to establish the Four-D College in 1992. One noteworthy challenge came from her questioning of a state statue that did not allow Dental Assistant Programs to use actual dental offices for certain training techniques. Creating Dental offices for training at the vocational school was cost prohibitive and seemed unnecessary when existing facilities were available. Ms Smith led the three-year effort and was successful in gaining the cooperation and support of various boards to get the policy changed.
Four-D is a faith based multi-ethnic Christian college that provides classroom lecture learning and clinical rotation experience in addition to molding students to become ethical healthcare professionals of integrity. They have trained some 15,000 individuals and currently have a total of 500 students enrolled on two campuses (Colton & Victorville) with 125 employees. The institution has been recognized as an outstanding business by numerous agencies. The school placement rates are between 70% – 80%. The training varies from Community College as their classes are career specific and much of the science information (anatomy, biology, etc.) integrated into their course work. All programs are certificate programs and both traditional and in-house financial aid is available in addition to scholarship opportunities. As their slogan states “Our goal is you success”.
Ms. Smith recently wrote Love Letters to the Lord, a three-volume book set that spans the early years of Four-D College from 1991 through 2000. She allows the reader a glimpse into her world and hopes the reader will be so inspired by her life’s journey, that they too will be inclined to find a void and fill it by serving humanity.
Recognized in national magazines, she is active on many boards and associations and was recently appointed by Governor Brown to serve a three-year term on the State Assistance Fund for Enterprise Business and Industrial Development.
A Q & A period followed.
The meeting adjourned at 8:40 a.m.