Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1992)
Q_L_A_Q_K_A_JS_A_S. C^O-JLJLJLJL±JL-Y_ G_Q_L_L_E_Q_£ Governor visits campus dedication, a 'great partnership' by Nolan Kidwell News Editor The Oregon Advanced Technology Center (OATC) at the CCC Wilsonville campus was dedicated in a ceremony, March 19, and was attended by represen tatives from business, industry and government, including Governor Barbara Roberts, who spoke at the ceremony. “This advanced technol ogy center is a cornerstone for vo cational training in the state,” said Roberts as she addressed the crowd of500 which had assembled for the occasion. “Your exciting collabo ration goes a long way toward help ing Oregon build the best-trained work force by the year 2000.” The OATC has been cre ated through a collaboration of donations made by various busi nesses and industries, both here in Oregon and nationally which spe cialize in screw machine produc tion and precision metal fabrica tion. will continue the partnership with similar arrangements. Index Corporation is only one of the businesses who donated part of the $1.6 million in instruc “Our biggest frustration was when we started selling in the U.S. market and the U.S. was not educated on the machines,” accord ing to Gary Sihler, of Index Corpo ration in Connecticut, a German based company, who is one of the major contributors to OATC. “It is only in our best inter est to help the U.S. move from mass production to more flexible production,” added Sihler. Index Corporation has loaned a very so phisticated piece of equipment to the center which will eventually be bought by Leupold and Stevens, a Béa verton-based company. Sihler tional equipment and software. Many businesses involved in dona tions feel that there will be more demand for their products and machines by other companies, if the other companies feel that they can find trained people to operate the machines. “It’s important for us to show our product and have people trained on it,” explained Steve Pit kin, of Production Machine Tools. “There is a growing need in the Pacific Northwest,for sheet metal- trained people.” According to Garry Con ner, oneof the instructors at OATC, a couple of companies have al- explains that Stevens and Index photo by Notan Kidwell Business executives participated in the events at the Wilsonville dedication. Several busi nesses collectively donated $1.6 million in equipment and software. photo by Notan Kidwell Governor Barbara Roberts attended and spoke at the dedica tion of the new Wilsonville campus. ready bought laser cutters because graduating this term. He has com of what they saw at the center. pleted his nine-month training and “They saw they could get trained will be receiving his certificate. He people. already has a job which he got The land for the OATC because of his training at OATC, was donated by Tektronix, and and has had other job offers since. construction of the center was paid “The results have been very grati for through a $13 million taxpayer- fying,” said Smith. The program approved bond issue, along with has taught me pride in workman- state and federal grants. The classes at "We're still crossing the the OATC have felt an immediate demand. “I Oregon Trail in new ways." just got the word that registration (for next -John Keyser term) is full, and the term hasn’t even begun yet.” said Conner. He says that he is ac ship.” "This is a great partner tually one student over the maxi mum registration and will have to ship-one of the most exciting I’ve worked on,” said College Presi sign that student into the course. Robert Smith, a precision dent John Keyser. “We’re still cross sheet metal technology student, is ing the Oregon Trail in new ways.” Russian economist speaks at Clackamas by Nolan Kidwell News Editor Former Economic Advi sor to Mikhail Gorbachev, Lev Nicholaevich Karpov, spoke yes terday to a large group of students, faculty and staff in the McLough lin Hall Theater about conditions in what used to be the Soviet Un ion. Karpov is the head of the econpmic department of the Insti tute of U.S. and Canada Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also an author and expert on regional and natural resource econo mies. Karpov spoke here at Clacka mas, once before, about three years ago. Due to Karpov’s earlier appearance. at Lewis and Clark College, he arrived later than ex pected and skipped straight to a question and answer session after a brief address to the crowd. Karpov spoke of two schools of thought as to the current conditions in Russia. One of these is that the turmoil has reached bottom and the other is that the former U.S.S.R is still fall ing. “We expect, for example, a 20% reduction of GNP (Gross National Product) next year,” com mented Karpov. In response to a question from one of the students at the presentation, he said that the standard of living in Russia is not measured only by GNP, but “pro ductivity,” transportation and geo graphical division of labor. He feels that because of the turmoil, pro duction is slow. According to Karpov, defense cutbacks are about two- thirds of the previous budget. He said that this is still three times larger than the cuts made by the U.S. in the last year. Unfortunately, these cuts in the manufacture of arms have not helped the produc tion of domestic goods all that much in Russia, according ip Karpov. , “You cannot immediately convert a shell into a piece of meat,” he stated. Karpov commented on the unemployment in Russia, when asked a question about the previ ous claim of the Soviet Union of full employment. “I think we have about four million unemployed now,” said Karpov. This is about two or three percent unemployment, according to his calculations. “We consider that in the future this number will be bigger,” he said. Those without work will probably rise to about six "The deepest abyss in the world is a finan cial abyss." -Lev Nicholaevich Karpov million, a large number of these are expected to be women. He does not expect trade with other countries to change a whole lot, in regard to what is ex ported. According to Karpov, the policy is only to sell products to lution, but at the same time we need help,” he said. “The deepest abyss in the world is a financial abyss.” other countries, and not resources such as lumber. He explained that his country does sell lumber to Finland, only because Finland, though considered well forested, has very thin forests and doesn’t have the lumber capabilities of other countries. "You cannot immedi ately convert a shell into a piece of meat." When referring to trade, Karpov used a saying which comes from Russia: “Optimists speak the language of English. Pessimists speak the language of Chinese. Realists speak (Russian word for) directly or effectively.” Karpov agrees with a state men t made on CNN, about the cur rent financial help which the U.S. is giving Russia now through Presi dent George Bush’s proposal, say ing that the help given was too small and too late. “This is a temporary so Karpov feels that Russia is moving more toward a free enter prise system where the government still owns much of the business, but there is room for individual achieve ment, which is different than in a purely capitalist system. He de scribes this as a “change in motiva tion to woik.” Karpov expects a “.„.sta bilization which we hope to see at the beginning of next year.”
