Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Value of Partnerships

  • By Deb Moore
  • 03/01/15

Build it and they will come. That is the story of the recently opened Western Maricopa Education Center (West-MEC) Northeast Campus. The Northeast Campus is built on an 11-acre site adjacent to the Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix. The designbuild project by DLR Group/Architechnology and McCarthy Building Companies included the transformation of existing office, warehouse, hanger and vehicle maintenance shop into a first-class educational environment.

Touring the campus and meeting with staff members and their superintendent, Greg Donovan, gave me a renewed appreciation for the value of partnerships.

West-MEC is a public school district that provides students innovative Career and Technical Education. More than 21,000 students from 46 high schools across almost 3,685 square miles are currently enrolled in West-MEC Career and Technical Education courses. In addition to satellite programs for students at their high school campus, West-MEC currently operates a Central Campus, a Freightliner Campus, Start@West-MEC, the Northeast Campus and a number of educational partner campuses.

Other partnerships and alliances include Arizona DES Rehabilitation services, Southwest Skills Center and Sonoran UCEDD to train young adults with disabilities, and the Maricopa County Sheriff ’s Association.

In addition to equipment and support, Snap-On Corporation has named West-MEC as a certification center for the state and the Train-the-Trainer conduit for a four-state area. Trane Corporation teamed to establish an HVACR training program and The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station has partnered to establish an Energy Technician training center.

It didn’t take long for me to see that this is not a vo-tech school of yesteryear designed for “those kids.” It is a school that offered a college and career pathway for the students choosing to attend. Students come away with skills, certifications, college credits and a path to the future. The proof is in the numbers. The retention rate at the school is between 96 to 100 percent. The graduation rate for CTE students is 99 percent. In a time when we must focus our energies on partnerships, workforce development, a bridge between high school and college, jobs and student success, West-MEC has done it right. It is a program and campus worth seeing!

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Q&A: How to Prevent Kitchen Grease Fires in Commercial Kitchens

    School cafeterias and university dining halls serve thousands of meals daily, relying on high-heat equipment like fryers, grills, and ovens. While these operations keep students fed, they also generate significant grease-laden vapors. Without proper controls, this grease becomes a silent fire threat. As a certified exhaust cleaning specialist and business coach who has helped hundreds of institutional facilities achieve NFPA 96 compliance, I emphasize that proactive grease management isn’t optional; it’s a core fire/life safety practice.

  • Myrtle Grove Elementary

    Phased Construction Keeps Students on Campus During Rebuild

    When Escambia County School District needed to replace most of Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Pensacola, Fla., it had three distinct challenges: honor the school's legacy in the community, bring state-of-the-art learning environments to the county, and be seamlessly built on the same site as the active school campus.

  • GeoCam and UCLA: Modernizing Campus Accessibility Mapping

    In early 2025, UCLA partnered with GeoCam to capture and modernize its pedestrian infrastructure data. The goal was ambitious but clear: to produce a high-accuracy, imagery-backed digital map of every sidewalk, pathway, ramp, and ADA-related feature on UCLA’s 419-acre campus.

  • Phoenix School District Breaks Ground on New Prep Academy

    The Creighton Elementary School District near Phoenix, Ariz., recently broke ground on a campus replacement for Biltmore Preparatory Academy, according to a news release. The new space will allow the school to expand its enrollment by 50 percent for K–8 students and accommodate modern, collaborative learning styles.