Change Starts Here

Education feels out of reach for so many, even at an institution as affordable as Trident Technical College. Although approximately 80% of TTC students receive federal financial aid, many still struggle to afford post-secondary education. That's where TTC Foundation Scholarships come in. Last year, more than 400 students received $428,000 in scholarships, and this year we are poised to award even more scholarships. Keith Rumrill, Director of Development, manages the scholarship program and says that when someone asks about funding a scholarship, they are often surprised at how little it takes. "Scholarship donors quickly recognize the impact they can make with as little as $1,000, which would fund an award for one year or $500 for a semester," he said.  Scholarships financially assist students with tuition, fees, equipment and books, even if they are receiving other aid.  As we read the thank you letters of grateful students, we are reminded of the other significant, oft...

Bill and Jeanne Hall with Chef Frank Lee.  The Charleston community experienced a significant loss when restaurateur Bill Hall suddenly passed away last year. But the legacy that he created lives on. A leader in the community, long-time Trident Technical College Foundation Trustee and supporter of TTC, Bill Hall and his family opened their first restaurant, Halls Chophouse, in downtown Charleston in 2009. Since then, the Halls Restaurant Group, now with eight restaurants, has become synonymous with true hospitality and well-known for its exceptional food, welcoming atmosphere and attention to detail. The Hall Management Group  hires more  Culinary Institute of Charleston  (CIC) students and apprentices than any other business in Charleston. Dean Michael Saboe had the privilege of working closely with the Hall family for the last 10+ years.  “The Charleston hospitality community is a better place because of Mr. Hall’s vision and philanthropic su...

A Night in the Valley, Trident Technical College Foundation's largest fundraising gala, typically takes place every January, welcoming 600 guests to enjoy a gourmet, full-service dining experience hosted by the Culinary Institute of Charleston . Every year, thousands of dollars are raised to support scholarships, student urgent needs and other crucial programs .  This year, however, the pandemic brought all in-person events to a screeching halt.  "Yet, the need is greater than ever," says Lisa Piccolo, TTC Foundation Executive Director, "It is especially hard right now for our students to reach their educational goals." After weighing many options, it was decided to take the event online. And thanks to the many sponsors and individual supporters of TTC, the event was a great success.   A Night in the Valley: Home Edition was held Friday evening, January 29, raising more than $160,000 from sponsorships, raffle sales and donations. Leading up to the event, chefs...

The Truist Foundation has awarded the Trident Technical College Foundation a $1 million grant to support the college’s effort to create the Truist Transportation and Logistics Center on the college’s Berkeley Campus in Moncks Corner. The transportation center is a major component of the college’s multiphase plan to renovate the aging campus. With the Truist Foundation grant, college funds, $1 million provided by Berkeley County and a private donation of $100,000, the college will be able to move forward on the initial phase of the renovation project and offer commercial driver’s license training on the campus this fall. The college will continue to seek local, state and private funding to complete the full $32 million campus renovation to better serve the training needs of rapidly growing Berkeley County. “The Truist Transportation and Logistics Center will support the workforce needs of diverse employment sectors, including transportation and air freight providers, warehouse and dis...

Moving can be difficult for most teenagers, but when it's to another country, it can be even more intimidating. America Martinez Gonzalez moved to the United States from Mexico with her parents at the age of 18.   She eventually learned English by watching the television show, "Friends. " She says, “Because of the language barrier, I felt so insecure about meeting new people. But "Friends" helped me overcome the struggle and I laughed a lot while doing so.” Now she has two teenagers of her own and is one semester away from getting her associate degree in Baking and Pastry at the Culinary Institute of Charleston at Trident Technical College .  Her dream is to open a Hispanic bakery. For years Gonzalez would drive by Thornley Campus in North Charleston thinking how nice it must be to study there. At the time, she did not have a social security number, a high school diploma or the money to go to college. She thought the American dream was beyond her reach....

When life throws you one challenge after another, you start to appreciate the small wins.  For Trident Tech student Kristi Salvo, receiving a new laptop through the Student Urgent Needs (SUN) fund was a game-changer.  Like students across the country, Salvo’s in-person classes were abruptly switched to an online format this spring due to COVID-19. But she knew her older computer couldn’t keep up with the online demands and she couldn't afford to buy a new one. “I was already dealing with a lot and it felt like this was going to be the thing that would break me,” she said. Salvo, a veteran of the US Air Force, struggles with health issues, including a back injury and a severe autoimmune disorder. In March, she and her husband separated, leaving her to juggle the responsibility of being a student, while also being a teacher to their two young children. All this, while trying to stay healthy and safe during a global pandemic. After Salvo and her children moved into a smaller, mor...

Robert Anderson hadn’t yet graduated from Trident Technical College when he was offered an IT job with the local bank in his Pennsylvania hometown. The year was 1966, and the job was a systems analyst on an IBM mainframe computer located at another company. The other company was 23 miles away. “In those days, a computer was a major investment, and it was common for businesses to share computing time,” said Anderson.  If something went wrong with the program - which could happen at any time, in any weather -  he would drive to the computer center, debug the program and stay to make sure the bank application finished and the bank's customer accounts were up to date the following morning.  “Roads could be very slippery; there was this one hill that my car would sometimes slide back down,” he laughed. Anderson wasn’t sure what he wanted to do when he graduated from high school, so he decided to join the Air Force. He was stationed around the country and in England, from wher...

E arning a college degree is challenging enough. But for single parents, it can seem like an insurmountable feat. Costs like living expenses and childcare only add to the stress of paying tuition. Making time to study usually means waiting until after the kids are in bed, leading to added exhaustion and stress.  When Joyce Antonetty attended Trident Technical College as a single parent of two young children, she knew it would be difficult. But she was determined to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a Fitness Specialist.  “I wanted to help people become a healthier version of themselves,” says Joyce. Joyce had been down this road before. Like many Trident Tech students, she had attended a four-year college immediately after high school. But when she was waitlisted to enter the Physical Therapy program at MUSC, she postponed her dream in order to start a family.  Joyce's life took an unexpected turn when she went through a divorce in 2010. She held se...

What do you get when you combine sparkling beverages, posh prizes and endless rounds of Bingo? Bubbles & Blingo of course! On May 11, 2019,  Trident Technical College Foundation  and the  Culinary Institute of Charleston  hosted the inaugural Bubbles & Blingo fundraiser in support of Trident Technical College. Guests were greeted with cotton candy-topped champagne as they made their way to a welcome reception featuring a photo booth equipped with hilarious props, resulting in some unforgettable photos. Some even arrived camera-ready with table themes like “Jolly Roger Pirates” and “Hot Tamales!” As attendees entered the ballroom for the main event, they were treated to a mouthwatering brunch selection created and served by the faculty and students of CIC, including a chicken and waffle station, shrimp and grits cakes and Greek or Italian frittata omelets. Floral centerpieces adorned each table and were accompanied by a tower of delect...

As you may know, the North Charleston campus of Trident Technical College was recently renamed Thornley Campus, after President Dr. Mary Thornley, to honor her for 46 years of service and leadership to the college. We held a dedication ceremony last fall, and the campus now proudly has signage bearing her name. What you may not know is that in conjunction with the campus renaming, two TTC Foundation trustees, Bobby Collins (immediate past chair) and Chris Fraser (vice chair) developed an idea to create a fund that will enable Dr. Thornley to continue her great works. The Thornley Leadership Fund provides immediate and significant benefits to TTC students. There are opportunities that present themselves for which students may not have the resources to pursue, and those opportunities can slip by. The Thornley Leadership Fund provides critical resources which have a direct impact on our students and allows Dr. Thornley to continue her legacy of leadership.  The fund is alr...

Stephan Valentine, Belinda Sherman, Mary Thornley, Christian Mahon, Grant Delgado The 2018 Scholarship Luncheon was held in the spring to celebrate and connect scholarship donors and recipients. The student panelists, Grant Delgado, Christian Mahon, Belinda Sherman, and Stephen Valentine answered questions posed to them by Dr. Mary Thornley, TTC President, and they shared their personal stories of humble beginnings and challenges along the way. The four students came from different backgrounds and are on different career paths but what they had in common was much greater than any differences: the desire to achieve success. All four of them spoke about the importance of having a cheerleader on their side and how receiving a scholarship gave them a reason to believe in themselves.  Belinda Sherman Belinda Sherman was abused as a child and told she would never amount to anything. She said, “After having to endure all that, I had to find my own way in life. Gett...

Bob Seidler had the opportunity to get to know TTC students long before he became chair of the TTC Foundation Board of Trustees this year. As a hotel executive with over four decades of experience in a wide variety of hospitality organizations, he has recruited and hired many TTC and Culinary Institute of Charleston graduates through the years. “They have always come to us well-prepared and excited about working in the field,” says Bob. “We just always knew it would work out when we hired TTC grads.” When he and his wife Margaret came to the College several years ago to provide developmental workshops to TTC employees, they were both further convinced of the valuable asset TTC represents in developing workforce talent for the region’s employers. “We saw an entire organization that is lean, efficient and strategic and realized just how critical their role in the community is to the continued success of our growing area,” he says. It wasn’t long before Bob and Margaret...

"You have no idea how unreal it feels to wake up knowing that just one more person believes in you."  -Olivia, TTC Scholarship Recipient TTC faculty and staff are committed to helping students achieve their goals and improve their lives, and through their participation in the 2018-19 CampusCampaign , So Much More , they demonstrated that commitment. Eighty-three percent of full-time employees contributed more than $72,000 for TTC Foundation programs like Scholarships, Minigrants and the Student Emergency Fund. This is no surprise, as faculty and staff have a long history of giving back to students, raising $1.4 Million since 1980. They give back because working at TTC is more than just a job to them. Through their donations, they are sending the message that they believe in students and are rooting for them to succeed. They understand that, to students, it’s about so much more than the financial support. Just knowing that they are surrounded by a communit...

You could say that Trident Technical College alum Tom Pinckney started attending college when he was about 10 years old. He would often go to work with his dad, who taught accounting at TTC, so that he could get access to the computers. “I really liked playing around with computers, mostly games, but it was the beginning for me,” says Tom. As he got older, he started sitting in on some of the computer programming classes and completing assignments from the classes, like writing programs to do payroll and other business tasks. He eventually decided he would just take all of his classes at Trident Tech, as opposed to traditional high school. He went on to take classes at the College of Charleston and then graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for undergrad and grad school. “I like to tell people that Trident Tech taught me all of the practical things about programming and MIT taught me all the theoretical things, so between the two I was covered,” he laughs. ...

Skip Godow  Skip Godow spent much of his career in higher education encouraging others to never be satisfied with the current state of affairs, no matter how good it is. "Good is the enemy of great and we should always be striving for great," says Skip. "That takes creativity, imagination and innovation." This is why he started the SKIPs (Strategy + Knowledge = Innovation Prize) at Trident Technical College in 2013. He wanted to help create a culture of innovation by rewarding those that make exceptional contributions in order to transform the student experience or improve on the administrative process. When Skip was the VP of Continuing Education at TTC, there was an "Innovator of the Month" award, which empowered employees to look at innovation as part of their jobs. "It was amazing to see how many people in the division came up with (and implemented) new ideas," he says. "Instead of thinking that we had to do things the w...

As Belinda Sherman stood alongside her Culinary Institute of Charleston classmates and took her bows at Trident Technical College’s annual fundraising gala  A Night in the Valley , it hit her that she was finally doing something she felt good about.  " I think it was the culmination of so many changes in my life and so many new emotions,” says Belinda. “I almost had to pinch myself to believe that I was living in this beautiful, amazing moment." Belinda is a mother of three, two of which are in college as well – one at USC, Aiken Campus and the other right here with her at TridentTechnical College in the pre-nursing program. As a first-generation college student, this makes her extremely proud. "I was determined to raise my kids to believe they can accomplish anything and they were most definitely going to be something. Unfortunately, I was not encouraged and was told that I would never amount to anything. " But it's even worse than that. Bel...

Trident Tech alum Jessica Sage never imagined that she would someday take over the family business, Charleston’s Rigging & Marine Hardware Inc. (DBA Carolina’s Rigging) with her brother, Skip.  In fact, their father, Rick Sawin, was always very much against it. “He saw too many businesses fail after the next generation took over,” says Jessica.  After graduating from Wando High School, Jessica was not sure exactly what she wanted to do, so she enrolled at Trident Technical College. It was there, while taking a class with TTC Instructor Michael Reed, she discovered an interest in environmental technology. Reed served as a mentor to her and strongly encouraged her to transfer to College of Charleston , where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in biology. Soon after graduation, she found success working for ArborGen, Inc., a provider of conventional and advanced genetics tree seedling products, and was named on a patented process of harvesting plant embr...