N.C. State is partnering with businesses and individuals in an economically hard-hit area of the state.

The Hickory region has been hard hit in recent years with major job losses in the furniture and textiles industries and also in the high-tech area of fiber optics. With the beleaguered communities in the four-county region of Catawba, Alexander, Caldwell and Burke counties asking for more engagement from UNC’s campuses to help them with their education needs and jobs training, the Greater Hickory Partnership was formed in 2009. Most recently, it was renamed the Partnership for Innovation and Education.

Appalachian State University leads the partnership, along with three regional community colleges, and N.C. State University is also playing a major collaborative role. Indeed, even before the partnership was founded, N.C. State had a major presence in the region through its county Cooperative Extension offices, the Industrial Extension Service office at Catawba Valley Community College, the Science House outpost in Lenoir and numerous programs by individual N.C. State colleges such as the College of Design and the College of Textiles.

The N.C. Cooperative Extension offices in Burke County help a lot of people in the area, including many who have moved to Western North Carolina recently. Lenoir resident Patrick Stevens is typical. Though he held a management job with a local manufacturing company, Stevens came to the Extension offices because he wanted to develop a sideline job that might become full-time when he retired. Extension agents directed him to N.C. A&T University in Greensboro where he took a workshop in growing Shiitake mushrooms, a flavorful and healthful mushroom that is growing in popularity. When he lost his management job, his part-time job became his full-time job, and the techniques he learned enabled him to step right into full-time production.

“His mushrooms are in a picturesque location,” said Donna Teasley, consumer horticulture agent for N.C. Cooperative Extension Service in Burke Coounty. “He has a picnic area and he invites the public to come in and picnic and take tours. He has built up a lot of local customers that way.”

Stevens keeps in contact with the Extension office during the year, attending classes in horticulture. That way he receives mushroom spawn for free.

“If it wasn’t for the support I get from the Cooperative Extension office, I couldn’t continue in my business,” says Stevens. “And the extension people helped me to expand into produce. They had some fantastic seminars and a symposium with agriculture agents from four or five counties who gave presentations and provided literature. I based all my planting on their tables. Their help has been almost immeasurable.”

The Science House, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, is N.C. State’s statewide outreach program in math and science. Its mission is to partner with K-12 teachers and students to promote hands-on inquiry-based learning methods in science and math. Staff members work out of six offices across the state, reaching about 4,400 teachers and more than 27,000 students last year.

The Science House satellite office in Lenoir works with nine school systems in seven counties to train teachers in the use of hands-on technology that excites students. When teachers are trained, they can borrow equipment such as LabQuest, a hand-held electronic data-collection unit. In the field, students can get immediate feedback from the unit and watch data graphs being created on the screen. Students are learning how to use the equipment to test water quality in area streams.

The Science House in Lenoir has been training teachers in modeling techniques, a teaching approach in which students can create their own models. “The method is really growing,” said Regina Barrier, a regional director of the outreach program in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. “Students are using models of the scientific process which ensures that they understand the scientific concept. The students are actively engaged in creating their own models.”

One of the 44 teachers who learned the model-centered inquiry approach at The Science House is Freda Parker. She teaches physical science at the Caldwell Career Center and Middle College, located on the Campus of Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute.

“The approach I learned at Science House has helped me tremendously,” said Parker. “I can find a new way of putting everything into a model so that students can use it instead of just memorizing things. I had always used hands-on activities in my classroom, but now I use them even more. Everything links together from beginning to end. Plus, you get a coach that helps you throughout the year, which is a tremendous help.”

N.C. State’s Industrial Extension Service (IES), College of Engineering, maintains a regional office at the Catawba Valley Community College that reaches out to manufacturers and other industries with top-rated workshops and classes. One of the improvement programs offered by IES is the training and application to the standards contained within the ISO Quality Management System. These internationally recognized standards provide customers with confidence that the company is following the steps to exacting quality standards. IES also offers Six-Sigma training to help businesses produce near-zero defects in their products and “Lean principles” to produce high-quality goods and services.

Over the past three years, IES agent Barbara Williams helped Polychem Alloy of Lenoir to achieve ISO 9001 certification. IES also trained this plastics manufacturer in a “Growth through Innovations” process that helps employees think out of the box to grow sales by developing new products, new markets and new customers.

“That was a very helpful process for us,” said Heather Justice of PolyChem Alloy. “Instead of just standard brainstorming sessions, it provides us with a map so we can use a different way of thinking about new ideas.

“We had tremendous support from the Industrial Extension Service, particularly from Barbara Williams,” Justice added. “ISO gave us the ability to have all of our employees thinking about quality in the same way so we’re all on the same page and have the same goals. And we’ve seen some positive benefits from customers to our ISO certification.”

Attracting the next generation of engineers requires an exposure to career possibilities by providing hands-on activities. In 2010, the N.C. State College of Engineering, in partnership with Appalachian State and the Catawba Champions of Education, hosted the first future engineers day camp for 40 rising third to fifth graders in Catawba County.