Juniors and seniors in high school in North Carolina are getting an early start on their college education and careers through paid apprenticeships connected to a community college.
“Like almost every community college in this country, our mission starts with access and leads into success. One of the biggest barriers to access and success is financial, so apprenticeships are paid at the RCC,” explains Shah Ardalan, Ed.D., president and CEO at Randolph Community College (RCC) in Asheboro, North Carolina.
Ardalan joined me for an interview for WorkingNation Overheard at College Board Forum 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Starting as early as their junior year in high school, and over three years, the students essentially have a job as they go to college. “Once they start at that level, the State of North Carolina waives their tuition and fees and the companies are paying them. By the time they finish, this is a 20-year-old or 21-year-old individual making over $42,000 a year.”
Randolph Community College offers the student-apprentice a lot of individual support. “Here, they have a mentor, a specific mentor assigned by the college, and they have one in industry,” says Ardalan. “They’re going to be coached throughout the three years – how to adapt to the culture of the college, to that industry and also how to be successful.
“The majority of them get a job offer to work at the same company because they had three years of checking each other out.”
He says the demand for trained workers is huge in advanced manufacturing and health care sectors, both of which have large presences in the area. “Toyota is investing $14 billion and is 30 minutes away from my college. There are investments of three companies of $30 billion. They’re going to be hiring over 10,000 individuals.”
Learn more about Randolph Community College.
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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
