April 15, 2010
Harrisburg, PA – HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, announced The Campaign to Help Tomorrow’s First Responders, Today! during a recent ceremony at the 12-acre site of the Senator John J. Shumaker Public Safety Center.
“HACC is launching a $14.3 million public campaign to fund phase one of a master plan to expand and upgrade the complex that serves more than 30,000 first responders and healthcare workers a year,” said HACC President Edna V. Baehre, Ph.D.
“Today, we move forward with plans to rejuvenate the spirit of community commitment that saw the establishment of the Senator John J. Shumaker Public Safety Center more than 20 years ago,” she continued. “Our region’s first responders deserve to be trained in a state-of-the-art educational facility, and HACC today is taking the steps to make that a reality.”
Baehre was joined by Nancy Rockey, HACC vice president of development and interim vice president of the Harrisburg Campus; Frank Conte, a member of the HACC Board of Trustees and the Public Safety Center’s Advisory Board; U.S. Rep. Tim Holden, D-17th Congressional District; State Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, R-15th District; and Dauphin County Commissioners Jeffrey Haste, Dominic DiFrancesco II, and George Hartwick III; and Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson in making the announcement of phase one of a 20-year master plan for improving the center.
“More than $1.1 million already has been raised through the PSC Partners Campaign,” said Conte. “We now invite the community to also reinvest in the training of their first responders by contributing to the campaign to fund the project.”
Baehre added, “HACC’s strength in serving Central Pennsylvania comes from the power of the partnerships the college has forged with business, industry and the community to meet the educational and workforce development needs of the region. Today, we extend those partnerships to include our region’s first responders.”
The event was staged near the original buildings that were erected when the complex was established, including a six-story fire training tower, smoke structure and burn building. The buildings are visible from nearby Interstate 81. Among the dignitaries also attending were retired Harrisburg City Fire Chief Donald Konkle, executive director of the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute and a member of the PSC Advisory Board, and representatives of the project design team, including Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates of Mechanicsburg, K&W Engineers/Consultants of Harrisburg and CenterPoint Engineering of Mechanicsburg.
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