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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire [00:00:04]:
Welcome to another edition of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. And today we have one of the real thought leaders in career education in the country, somebody that I've wanted to have on the show for, for quite a while. It's Mary Kelly. She's President and CEO of StrataTech Education Group. She is also a board member of Career Education Colleges and Universities, which is the source of this podcast. And I think this is the appropriate time to have her on because she very recently wrote an op ed about innovation in higher education, but has had a lot of leadership through speaking and posting on social media. And Mary, I can't thank you enough for being willing to come on the show.
Mary kelly [00:00:52]:
Thanks, Jason. It's a pleasure to be on here and I'm really happy to talk with you. And I just want to thank you for all the work you do. You've been a tremendous asset to our industry and a tremendous thought leader as well. So it's really great to be able to spend a few minutes with you.
Jason Altmire [00:01:07]:
Well, thank you for that. And I think we should start by talking about StrataTech. What are your brands and what is StrataTech?
Mary kelly [00:01:16]:
Sure. So StrataTech Education Group, we are the parent company for Tulsa Welding School, which is the largest accredited welding school in the country, and for rsi, the refrigeration school, which is actually the largest single site H VAC school in the country. We have five campuses and we offer all of our programs at all those campuses. So we have a campus in Phoenix, Arizona, Dallas, Texas, Houston, Texas, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Jacksonville, Florida. So we pump out about 6,000 graduates a year. Each school's about a thousand each. And we do strictly focus on welding, H Vac electrical, we've added line worker. They're the guys and gals that climb up on the poles and exciting to us, we are launching in Texas our industrial maintenance technician program.
Mary kelly [00:02:04]:
So we specifically focus on skill trade.
Jason Altmire [00:02:07]:
Education and those are high demand jobs. You know, I visited one of those linemen colleges in Idaho and boy, that is a tough program. It's not an easy one. You have to have an aptitude for it. No fear of heights, of course, but it's really important for the country. You know, anytime any disaster happens where those lines goes down, those are the people that are in the trucks heading that way. So really, really important career.
Mary kelly [00:02:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, our thesis is, since we've started, we've always said that we want to focus on our return on investment for our students. And we actually have put a metric on that. We say we want to we, when we look at programs, we don't want to bring on a program unless it's bringing one and a half to two times the return on investment. So lineman definitely goes with that.
Jason Altmire [00:02:56]:
And I visited a couple of your welding schools. I visited the refrigeration school in Phoenix. And what's most impressive to me is the culture that you've established. It's just so obvious. The students are happy to be there. They're getting a lot out of their time and their education. I think you have told me before you have a 90% placement rate for most of your programs. What do you think it is about Strata Tech that has led to such success?
Mary kelly [00:03:27]:
Oh, it's my people, you know, I mean, I've just got great people. We get, I would say, like my instructors, 30% of our instructors are former students. Right? I, I've, if I look at my employers, I don't have a number in front of me, but I would say, you know, 20 to 25% of our employers are former students. So it's just kind of a family atmosphere. People come, they know we're not going to waste their time. Look, I was an English teacher when I first started out, right? You're not going to sit in a classroom with us and learn composition or, you know, the great literature works of time. You're, you're going to be spending as little time as possible in your seat to get what you need to be successful when you leave. And most of the people that come to us need that.
Mary kelly [00:04:07]:
Like they need to make a change. And so that's part of the buy in. They know they're making that change and they know they're going to be out and making that money fairly quickly and many of them have to make that. So. But I would say overall, I've got the best people that I could possibly have working for me. They all believe in the mission. We're all there to help these students go out and change their lives and change generations to come and their families and to help our employers.
Jason Altmire [00:04:35]:
And we're going to talk in a moment about the innovations that you recommend for the future, but also the innovations that you're currently engaged in. But I wanted to talk about you for a moment because I think your life story is very interesting. You're one of the leaders in career education. You're respected across the sector. You're an incredibly successful businesswoman. But it started, I believe, in Canada and you worked your way up and you've called yourself an accidental CEO. So talk a little bit about how this all came to be.
Mary kelly [00:05:10]:
Yeah, that's. That's great. So you've been talking to Mike Sangster out there in Canada.
Jason Altmire [00:05:14]:
That's right.
Mary kelly [00:05:15]:
Great, great, great guy. Runs a great organization. So, yeah, listen, I started out, I have a decent iq. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I. I rate as fairly intelligent. But I had a lot of trauma and drama in my family, and so I was not a successful student. And they would constantly be testing me and being like, why is she scoring here? It's not an intelligence issue. What's going on? And nobody ever really noticed that something was going on at home until I was in high school and a high school teacher actually pulled me aside and I said, I think something's going on.
Mary kelly [00:05:48]:
And at that point, I felt for the first time in my life, somebody actually saw me and heard me and, you know, we talked about. And my trajectory changed after that. It wasn't immediate, but it definitely changed after that. And I, at that point, I said, this is what I want to do. I want to go into teaching, because these people can make that kind of a difference in someone's life. And it was a huge difference for me. Like, I just. I didn't think anyone saw me and knew what was going on.
Mary kelly [00:06:13]:
And just to be able to even talk about it was huge for me. So I've been in education all my life. I started out as a teacher. I didn't like it as much because I really liked the problem students and the administration didn't. So that led to some conflict. I had a friend that was working in adult dad said, you have to try this. I said, oh, gosh, I don't know. I can't make a difference with adults.
Mary kelly [00:06:33]:
I ended up in adult dad, and man, I fell in love. Yes, you absolutely can make a difference. And I worked for Brian and Stratton College in Albany, New York, and that was my first foray into for profit education. And man, I was. I got the bug. I got bit and work with tremendous people. And since then, I've pretty much been in education. I've done a couple things outside of education.
Mary kelly [00:06:55]:
You know, I worked at a nonprofit. I've worked at a couple of nonprofit universities. I've worked at the community college. But I've come back to rest here because this ultimately is where I want to be. Right in the middle of for profit education. We have been servicing the students that people didn't want to service. Now all of a sudden, everybody wants to get in bed with them, right? Because they don't have enough students. But they didn't care about them for a long time.
Mary kelly [00:07:18]:
I'm sorry if that's crass, but. But that is what it was like. They just didn't care. Now they have to get more market share and so they're going after adult students, which they didn't care about before. So this is where my heart is, where my love is. I got a job with Lincoln Education Services. Lincoln Tech's a great company. That was my first job as a campus president.
Mary kelly [00:07:37]:
I say I was raised there. They were great. Scott Rudd's a great organization. Shout out to Lincoln. They're a competitor, but they're awesome. And I came here from, from there, so as a COO and then eventually CEO, and yes, I do say I'm an accident when people say, you know, how do you get to be CEO? I said, I don't know, because I never woke up and said, that's what I want to do. Right. Like, I didn't think I'd live past 40, to be honest with you, the way I was kind of living.
Mary kelly [00:08:01]:
And, you know, I just. One thing led to another and I can affect bigger change as a CEO than I can just in my classroom. So it's been a great ride and I'm very, very fortunate.
Jason Altmire [00:08:12]:
One of the criticisms of the for profit sector is the involvement of private equity, and you've been outspoken. I've heard you talk about your relationship with private equity and the support they've given you at Strata Tech. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Mary kelly [00:08:28]:
Yeah, I'd be happy to. I've had two equity groups back at me and they've both been awesome. Summer street was our first group and then we now have Halifax. It's been tremendous. They've never, ever question when we want to spend money. And first off, private equity coming to the table has allowed us to expand our. We wouldn't have been able to do that on our own. So it gave us the resources to be able to expand and keep affecting the numbers that we're affecting.
Mary kelly [00:08:53]:
Right. Our employers need it, our students need it. We wouldn't be able to do that without them. I've never once had them question any expenditure that was for the good of the student. Both groups totally understood that this was a space they were getting into where you can make money doing good. Like, everybody wins, right? So. And you make more money if you're doing really good. Like, if you really have great outcomes and you're helping people, everybody gets to make money, which is fantastic.
Mary kelly [00:09:19]:
So I know there's a perception out there that private equity is kind of like a. What was that pretty lady that show? The. The one with. Oh, good gosh. Pretty woman. I think it was where she was.
Jason Altmire [00:09:31]:
A. Oh, Julia Roberts.
Mary kelly [00:09:33]:
Julia Roberts. Yeah. I'm getting old, but I think that's what everyone thinks of private equity. Like, they go in, they buy a company, they fire everybody, they load it up with debt, and then they sell it. That has not been my experience at all. And shout out to my group, I mean, the Halifax group, when we went to the table to go down the path with another private equity group, we recorded by many people, including Strategics. But we love these guys because they had been in business a long time and had only lost one business ever, which is a great record. Right.
Mary kelly [00:10:04]:
So they've done well with all their businesses. And two, they really were invested in having businesses that matter. So, for example, they own Chancelite, which does alternative education and also does autism services. Like, that touched our heart. And they're just. They're great to work with. So I would say if you're looking at getting, you know, Volvo private equity, it depends on who the group is. But my experience has been 100% positive.
Jason Altmire [00:10:31]:
One of the things that's striking in visiting your schools and in talking to your students, you know, I've been doing some media interviews with one of your students out of Jacksonville, your Jacksonville campus, and they're just fantastic. They're great people and they're committed to the mission, and it's striking that they want to carry the mission forward. They talk about the trades, they go out into the community, they try to recruit people and talk about the importance of the work and the job opportunities. And it's very obvious in visiting the campuses that the equipment and the technology that you're not only using, but pioneering in some cases, with regard to Oculus training and distance education as it relates to some of these skilled trades. I'm sure that has played a role with regard to the funding and your ability to carry out some of these. These programs in that way. But that. That leads to the innovation piece.
Jason Altmire [00:11:29]:
Talk about some of the things that you're doing that are cutting edge that are leading to these incredible results with a 90% placement rate.
Mary kelly [00:11:37]:
Yeah, sure. Jason, you mentioned the Oculus Ocuweld, so I'd like to say that that was in planning for years and years and years. It wasn't. Covid happened and. And we were in. We were in pretty red states, so we didn't suffer as well as other States did, but we were closed from time to time. And I had students calling me and I mean, literally, they're like, they were graduating the next week and they're like, Ms. Mary, how can I finish? I got to go to work.
Mary kelly [00:12:02]:
I got to. I got to work. And people were being employed even though places were shut down. The people going to work, as you know, were skilled trade workers and healthcare people. Right. So there were jobs for students. And so that was born out of. We got to figure out a way to have something if this happens again.
Mary kelly [00:12:17]:
So we went down the path with a company and we created our own virtual reality for we are the welding experts. Right. I know other. I mean, that's what we do well, and it's what we've been doing. We do other things well, too, but we're welding experts. We created our whole curriculum. We pretty much put into a virtual reality using the Oculus. I think you know this.
Mary kelly [00:12:37]:
But when we came out with it, Facebook actually jumped on it. And Facebook did a whole global campaign. We were being advertised in Poland. We were getting calls from Poland and other places. They picked four companies to highlight that were doing great things with. With the Oculus. So they've been great to work with. The students love it because it's a couple things.
Mary kelly [00:12:57]:
One, welding is. And I'll talk about the other trades, but all trades are about, you know, hand, eye coordination and practice. Right. Practice makes perfect. In welding, it's a lot about hand, eye coordination and getting that right way to hold, you know, the welding rod and those kinds of things. And it's not something. I mean, you practice it in the lab, but with the Oculus, you can actually practice that at home. And here's the part that I'm super excited about.
Mary kelly [00:13:23]:
We have a lot of students that don't have any means. Some of them don't even have money for Internet at home. With the Oculus, you don't need Internet. Once you put it on the. On the Oculus itself, they can practice that all day long to their heart's delight at home, which is really nice. Right? And they could practice all the different. And then they come back to school, they could plug it in, and then the teachers can get that feedback. So, you know, equity and access is really important to us as well.
Mary kelly [00:13:47]:
So that satisfied that at the same time, we went down the road with Canvas, we put in an lms, we figured out how to make all of our programs hybrid look with the skilled trades. I'm not going to knock anyone who's doing it 100% online. But I can tell you I would never be comfortable teaching zone welding, H vac or electrical 100% online. Because if you're not actually learning how to practice it and apply what you learn, how do you know you could do it? And we've had companies that have tried some online learning and have come to us and said, hey, we need a, we need an on site portion and we know you can do that. So, you know, that's how we actually started our B2B business. We got one very large customer that way and we've been growing that. So, you know, we're trying to figure out what's coming next. I don't have the answer, Jason.
Mary kelly [00:14:34]:
I wish I did. I want to know what the next big thing is. But all the kids coming out today have had technology. Anyone coming out of school is demanding that they have some kind of technology component in their program. You know, my instructors didn't want us to go hybrid because they're like online edge, like, look, there's no reason why somebody's didactic. Their classroom portion can't be online if you created a robust learning environment. They love it now. They get to like work from home a couple days and be online and the students don't have to come in and pay for gas.
Mary kelly [00:15:05]:
I mean, everybody loves it. And that's what people are looking for. Our industrial maintenance technician program we're putting in that is automation. So it'll be looking at various components of automation and what you're doing with that. You know, we work with Walmart. We've put together something for them that's working on automation. So I know you're talking about like we, are we going with innov? I don't have the answer, but we're trying to stay with our employers and finding out what's coming next. So for welding example, cobots are big, right? Cobots work along with a welder.
Mary kelly [00:15:37]:
They don't replace a welder. They probably make it so that, you know, you don't have to have as many welders, but a welder works with a cobot. Those kinds of things we're trying to stay on top of. We have a great relationship with Miller. Miller let us pilot a cobot. They're super expensive. We're trying to figure out, okay, how do we get that into the curriculum?
Jason Altmire [00:15:53]:
For someone who's entering the program, let's say a non traditional student, maybe they've tried something else. They have no background in welding. We'll use that as the example. What can they expect when they go into the program, how long does it take? How much of it is in person versus online, as you talked about, and then on the other end, once they're done, what are their prospects?
Mary kelly [00:16:16]:
Yeah, well, like I said, you know, we have a 90% placement rate. I'd have a hundred percent if some of the students decided they didn't want to work. Right. That happens. We have some military and they deserve every benefit they get. And some of those, those guys don't go to work. They're using their benefits to learn things that they want to learn. But they may not want to go into welding.
Mary kelly [00:16:34]:
And God bless them, they deserve that. So welding is a seven month program. Most of our programs are about seven months. So welding, you could do welding, refrigeration or electrical in, I believe it's like seven months. You go 25 hours a week. So depending on the program, welding is 25 hours a week, four days a week, you're in the lab. So you actually have to. Because welding is very, very lab intensive.
Mary kelly [00:16:57]:
So you have to do 20 hours in a lab and five hours is on site. Refrigeration, on the other hand, is about. It's 20. All of our programs are 25 hours a week because 90% of my kids work. So we have a morning and afternoon and a night shift and a weekend shift we put in, which is very popular. So because like I said, most of our kids are working and you could still work around it and you're finished in about, you know, seven months. Plenty of people come in that have never welded or never done H vac or have not done any skill trade and can get out and graduate. Our teachers are phenomenal.
Mary kelly [00:17:30]:
So if you want to learn it, you can learn it. I'm a horrible welder. I don't. You can't teach me how well. So unfortunately, I'm brain dead when it comes to that. But I would say out of our program, let's just take welding. Probably 60% of them have not welded before they come to us.
Jason Altmire [00:17:46]:
What percentage of your students have tried another educational setting before?
Mary kelly [00:17:53]:
That's a great question. A lot. And we actually are going to quantify this. We're starting to capture that data because I think it's an important data point. I could give you anecdotally because I don't have it written down, but I know just even at rsi, like I'll go over there just to say hello, I'll talk to the class, hey, where'd you come from? And I'll at least have a Couple that are from the community college right down the street. So community colleges are great. I never would have gone to college without a community college. Right.
Mary kelly [00:18:19]:
There's definitely a purpose there because we're for profit and because we have to view a student as our customer, we have to give that student as much as we can and we surround them with much more services and availability of instructors and all those kinds of things, and they'd get somewhere else. Right. And so oftentimes, as if not successful somewhere, we have people that got baccalaureate degrees in other things out of the skilled trades and came back and said, like, I can't get a job and make, I can't make decent money. I got to go make money. So that's why I'm going into this.
Jason Altmire [00:18:51]:
I think my observation, having visited over 100 career schools, is, you know, the difference between a for profit setting generally and a community college setting. And as you said, there's definitely a significant role for community colleges in our educational ecosystem. They play a vital role. But I think when you look at programmatic comparisons, the professionalism, you know, being run like a business, the professionalism of the staff, of the faculty, and as we talked about the technology for some of these trades, it's noticeable the difference in the higher levels of technology, more modern equipment, especially in the healthcare settings, but it also applies to the trades. And most importantly, or at least most noticeably is the connection with the students. And you touched upon this. And I've been been to your schools where I've had campus directors tell me when a student doesn't show up that day, the campus director, the top person, calls that student and says, hey, where were you? Is everything okay? Is there anything we can do to help that doesn't happen in other settings where they may not even know the name of that students? Your campus directors know the names and the backgrounds and the challenges. And that's why I asked you about your background, because I think that's a culture that starts at the top.
Jason Altmire [00:20:20]:
And the fact that you grew up and experienced some of that in your own life, I think you have brought that to the culture of strata. Would you think that that's something that filters down in a way that you see it at your campuses?
Mary kelly [00:20:37]:
Yeah, I would say that's right. I do see that at the campuses. And yeah, I, I actually have called the student when I've sat in for a campus president, right? The student will be like five people called me already and I'm like, okay, we'll go to class. Nobody will call you. It's easy. But I would say, yeah, that's true. I have a great management team. Look, my second in command, my chief operating officer, also came from Lincoln.
Mary kelly [00:21:00]:
He was a high school dropout and he was a high school dropout that a for profit company reached out, got him back in school. And here he sits now because somebody, an admissions person, called him more than once because he was afraid of going to school. And here he sits with, you know, a baccalaureate, a master's degree, thinking about a PhD and a CEO of a pretty large company. Those things matter and they happen at a lot of schools that are in our industry.
Jason Altmire [00:21:24]:
And you have a great relationship, as many schools do, with employers and the occupations that you're training people to fill. These are high demand jobs. And we hear all the time, as I know you do, that you know, there's a lack of the skilled workforce. The demand is just so high out there for these jobs and they're just craving students to come that are well trained and able to do the job. How do you work those relationships with employers and what is their opportunity to engage with these students throughout the process?
Mary kelly [00:21:58]:
Yeah, so our employers, you know, we know them well, they come to the school and they'll visit students while they're in school. They'll talk about their programs, you know, for welding. They'll actually come and they'll test them right on site because nobody's gonna go get a good welding job without being tested. So they can do that at our facilities. They'll come, we'll test them, they'll offer em a job. We do a lot of surveying with our employers. Obviously we include them in our PAC committees. We have a lot of career fears where we bring em in.
Mary kelly [00:22:26]:
You know, we graduate people and start people every four to five weeks and we do a high volume, so there's a lot of people coming out. So there's always employers on our site and we've had great partnerships with them. So, you know, and like I said, some of our employers have been ex students. I got to tell you, Jason, real quick, we had our RSI 60th anniversary and I'm, I'm always blown away when people talk my students and this was really special. So one of the people that got up Semper Fi heating in H Vac, they're in Arizona, they've now exploded into Nevada. The young man who came was a veteran. He, he went to our school. He basically got in a bike accident, motorcycle accident, almost broke his back, persevered through that, got out, got a job and said Gosh, I think I should run my own business.
Mary kelly [00:23:10]:
Started his own business in 2015. He now runs $140 million H Vac business. And he comes back and employs a ton of students from us. Like, man, that's just awesome. Right?
Jason Altmire [00:23:24]:
That's the full cycle.
Mary kelly [00:23:25]:
That's the full cycle. We want more of that.
Jason Altmire [00:23:28]:
Well, this has been great, Mary, if somebody wanted to learn more about StrataTech education and your schools, how would they do it?
Mary kelly [00:23:35]:
They could go to The Stratatech website, S-T-R-A-T-A T-E-C-.com, but they're better off going to the individual schools. So. Tulsa WeldingSchool.com Tulsa WeldingSchool.com or RSI Inc.com also TheReefrigerationSchoolInc.com or reach out to me and I'll send you to whoever you want to talk to.
Jason Altmire [00:23:56]:
Our guest today has been Mary Kelly, president and CEO of Strata Tech Education Group. Thank you, Mary, for being with us.
Mary kelly [00:24:04]:
Thanks for having me, Jason. And again, thank you for everything you're doing. You've made a tremendous impact with this industry and just representing us. And I, I and many people appreciate what you do. So thank you.
Jason Altmire [00:24:16]:
Thank you for saying that.
Jason Altmire [00:24:25]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's at C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.