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BY NIC MILLER
STAR STAFF
nic.miller@elizabethton.com

Dean Blevins, the current President of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology’s Elizabethton Campus, announced his retirement from the position earlier this week.

In a statement released by the Office of the President, Blevins said that “It has been the honor of my life to serve as President of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Elizabethton for the past twelve years and ten months. I believe we have set the college on a path to prosperity with a state-of-the-art main campus and plans for extension campuses within the service area to provide workforce development training for the citizens of Northeast Tennessee now and into the future.”

Blevins announced that the date of his expected retirement will be June 24, 2022.

“I have been in Career and Technical Education for 35 years now, and over the years we have gotten the college in a great position moving forward,” Blevins said. “I think now is the time to sort of go out on top and be able to do some of the things I want to do in my personal life.”

Blevins began his career at the college in a much different position.

“I started my career here 35 years ago when I taught industrial electricity electronics, and from there I was promoted to the Student Services coordinator. Shorty after receiving that promotion, I spent some time in Greeneville and Kingsport City Schools and was able to return to TCAT in August 2009 as president,” Blevins said.

Blevins said that there has been many changes and advancements since he began his career at the college.

“I think technology is the biggest change that we have seen over the years,” Blevins said. “Society education is a mirror image of society, so seeing how young people are compared to 35 years ago is different. It is not a bad thing, but things are different in that aspect.

“There are 27 TCAT’s across the state of Tennessee and the work that they all do is paramount to the skilled labor workforce as well as the needs, especially as we emerge out of this pandemic, for skilled labor. There is no better workforce development delivery system than TCAT, and that is no different here in Elizabethton,” Blevins continued.

Blevins said that there is still more work to be done, as the college has 3,500 students on a waiting list. “A question we ask that is a priority is how do we deal with that sheer number of students that want into our programs to be trained so that they can get out and receive jobs related to the training they received.”