Page 27 - Oct.Nov PDF For Flipbook

College alums who have attained all sorts of important posi-
tions throughout all aspects of the county. “From the pres-
ident and CEO of First Northern Bank (that’s the largest
employer in Dixon) to the general manager of the Valero
Benicia refinery (which is one of the largest employers in
the county) to very successful local business people,” he said.
“One consistency of many of these people we’ve identified

is they are business leaders.” Johnston also mentions Jack
Anthony of 7 Flags Car Wash, Monty Hoover who is president
and general manager of Gillespie’s Abbey Carpet & Floor as
well as president of the Fairfield-Suisun Chamber of Commerce,
Andrea Garcia from Touro University, who is the current pres-
ident of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. There are even
some elected officials as well, like Skip Thomson, the District 5
Supervisor for Solano County, and Marc Tonnesen, who is the
Solano County Assessor Recorder—the list goes on an on.
“Last year we had a dozen distinguished alumni, this year we rec-
ognized an additional 10. We’ll do 10-12 a year,” said Johnston.
“That’ll help build the ranks and build some affinity that people
will want to associate with Solano College.” But of course, in order
to find the distinguished alumni, they have to find the general
alumni population first. “We probably have at least a couple hun-
dred thousand alumni in this area,” Johnston said. “The purpose of
this project is to identify them and to encourage people to pass on
their contact information to reconnect to the college.”
The California Community College system is actually the largest
system of higher education in the United States with roughly 2.1
million students attending the 113 different community colleges.
“Community colleges dwarf the UC and CSU system in terms of
undergraduates,” said Johnston. He did some research in 2012 to find
that in the UC system, 28% of the undergraduates started in commu-
nity college, in the CSU system 55% started at community college, and
out of the STEM majors (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics)—48% started at community college. “And when they get to
the UC system they do every bit as well,” he said. “Community colleges are even
more important than they’ve ever been.” Especially when it comes to finances.
“As higher education gets more expensive each and every day, and student loan debt gets
out of control—community colleges are the wave,” said Johnston. He hopes to reach out
to the alumni for financial support at Solano Community College, but stresses that they’re
not looking at creating a dues-paying structure with the alumni. It’s true that most grad-
uates will often support their 4-year university first before their community college, he
explains, “But this is where they got their start.” And a donation of any size at the commu-
nity college level can be impactful, especially now that SCC has earned the right to issue
a 4-year bachelor’s degree in bio manufacturing…?!
That’s right. Solano College was one of 15 community colleges in California that was cho-
sen to be part of the Baccalaureate Degree Pilot Program. “Each college was only allowed
to have one bachelor degree, so we can only issue a BA in one program,” said Johnston.
He expects it to be quite a success and looks forward to the program expanding more and
more. Until then, the current incoming freshman in this Fall 2015 semester will be the