Background

Served as vice president of the Oak Creek Campus of Milwaukee Area Technical College since 2013. Simultaneously, he has served as a private consultant since 2011. He has also served as chief academic officer and interim director for DeVry University and Keller Graduate School of Management (2012-2013), vice president of student affairs at Hennepin Technical College in Minnesota (2009-2011), dean of instructional support, services and technology lead on new program development and articulation at Century Community and Technical College in Minnesota (2000-2009) and chief academic officer and director of continuing education/customized training at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College (1989-1996). Dr. Felsheim earned his bachelor’s degree in broad field social studies, his master’s degree in educational administration and his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The interview

Why did you want to apply to be president of HCC?

I’m interested in being a president and my wife and I chatted about it and she has family over in Virginia and this area so we like this area. North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia is where I’m looking as well as possibly staying in the Midwest.

What do you feel you can bring to the table for the college?

The president is the chief executive officer, the CEO. There’s an author called Jon Gordon who wrote the Energy Bus. He says every place should have a person who’s a chief energy officer. That’s what I think I would bring. I have a great deal of passion for this work. I believe in what community colleges do. I’m a product of the community college, I’m a first generation (community college product) who was flipping hamburgers so I wouldn’t be today where I am without the help of the community college. I’m very much about helping others. I think that’s what I would bring is a passion for the job and a passion for helping students and a vision.

What would you like to see done at the community college should you get the job?

I’m not coming in with an agenda. I would want to take the first few months to really get to know the college, but again the focus would be on what are we doing for economic development, how are we enhancing the economic development of the community. It looks like you’re trying to attract a few industrial parks. You’re not going to get employers if we can’t promise them that they’ll have skilled workers and that’s something we need to look at it and may have to modify how we do our traditional training to get them up to speed faster. The other thing is to look at student success to look at what we are currently doing and what could we do better. I’m a huge believer in building on strengths. I’ve got a lot of background in quality work. I’m a people person but I like data and numbers. Too many people I think look at quality as we’re just going to focus on what we’re doing wrong. To me, that’s the wrong approach. What you focus on is what’s going well and then, yes, let’s use those to improve our gap areas. So I would really want to spend time getting to know the community and the issues and what seems important to them. In fact, I would probably want to set a three-month goal of what do we want to see happen in the next three months.

Who influenced your decision to get into education?

I’ve always liked to learn, but it was at the community college. I was active, I was on the school paper, the student senate. It was those advisors who really got me interested in education. I originally started as a high school teacher. I thought I would like to do that, but then I had the opportunity to live overseas with my brother in Germany who was in the army and I started teaching adult high school for the military and fell in love with teaching adults. I found I had a talent for helping people who hadn’t done well in school, who thought they couldn’t be successful.

Any favorite book you’ve read or any favorite person you’ve drawn inspiration from the most?

I’m a voracious reader. Right now I’m reading Jon Gordon’s work on energy. I’m a big believer in that positive energy. I also read, not just business-related books, but I like to read (about) people who are moral leaders, possibly religious, but also just moral leaders, the writings of Mother Theresa, Gandhi and Einstein and about how there’s more to life than making money. It’s about making a difference and helping people. That’s very important to me.

How will the possible change in the state governor’s race change education on the community college level?

This may sound Pollyannish, but the community college, we should be well liked by everybody. If you look on the more conservative, Republican side, they love us because we’re training, we’re giving the employers the skilled workforce they need to be successful. We’re also working with their current, encumbered workforce to make them more successful and make their business more profitable. On the more Democratic union side, we’re helping people get good-paying jobs and jobs that will lead to a better life.