The April meeting of the Chattanooga Women’s Council of Realtors was positively packed with good news, useful tips and a hearty lunch.
Continuing with the FORD networking technique that stands for family, occupation, recreation and dreams, members were asked to focus on trying to expand networking attempts by asking about the occupation of the people they meet, and to focus on recalling this aspect when they meet this person again.
Jay Coffey then offered the tip of the month – an insurance tip to help keep clients happy.
“When you have a client who’s going to call an insurance company for a quote, advise them that they get up front the insurance 100 percent to value, replacement cost, especially to-day with all the foreclosures,” Coffey said. “We have so many people who are buying a house for $80,000 and replacement cost is $150,000, and they just argue and argue about wanting it for $80,000 and not the $150,000.”
Coffey said that most of the time, mortgage companies are going to require this anyhow, and most of the time, it has to be insured at 100 percent to value.
Richard Smith updated the group that the newsletter for WCR and emails are now posted to the Web site at www.wcrchattanooga.com.
This month’s super sponsor, Jody Millard, was born, raised and still resides in Soddy Daisy. He started his career in the pest control industry as a technician servicing homes and businesses over 30 years ago. After years of learning the business first hand, he decided to go out on his own with a small truck and a dream.
Today, his business is located at 1906 Hamill Road and continues to be the largest locally owned and operated pest control company in the area. He is the current president of the Tennessee Pest Control Association, and annually, Jody Millard Pest Control supports our community through financial contribution and donations of service.
Millard said at the meeting: “Anytime, we’re there to help. Just call, and if you don’t get what you want, call and ask for me because we’ll take care of it.”
The meeting then turned to Jim Catanzaro, president of Chattanooga State Community College for almost 20 years, to continue the good news about work being done in our community.
Olympic torch bearer, author, national speaker, television host and board member on over 25 national and community organizations in Chattanooga, Catanzaro’s “greatest strength is as a maximizer: taking ordinary ideas, operations and initiatives and making them exemplary,” the Gallup organization says. Catanzaro has done just that with Chattanooga State, and one of the outcomes of his work is the surging enrollment at Chattanooga State in growing over 25 percent in the last three years to 12,700 students.
“That’s a big number, and if things continue as they look they will, we’re going to hit 15,000 students in a rather short period of time,” he said. “If you look at the paper back in the ’60s, when they scouted out land and decided to put a community college here, they thought the top enrollment would be about 5,000 students.”
Although this is good news, it did mean that Chattanooga State had to scramble to find a way to build the campus up to accommodate these students. Four years ago, they purchased the lot next door that was the Olan Mills world headquarters, and in the coming weeks, they expect to acquire a major facility near it for more big plans that are in the works, Catanzaro said.
Chattanooga State’s programs are also putting them ahead, he said, including their professional acting program, known across the nation.
The Chattanooga State health science center is the envy of everyone in the state, including the UT Center in Memphis, Catanzaro said and the online capability they have reached is “truly extraordinary.”
“For all the universities and colleges that participated in the study last month, putting up their Web site and online catalog, our online Web site came up as No. 1 in the county. We have more students taking online courses than the entire UT system put together – over 3,500 students,” Catanzaro said.
He explained the fight he had to go through 10 years ago to bring online to the campus, which has now resulted in 375 online courses, some of which are named the best in the country.
“We know how to do things online because we got into the game early, threw a lot of assets at it and bled a lot, but it was worth it, the payoff is there,” he said.
The corporate relationships of Chattanooga State are something that almost no one else in high education can compare with, he added.
“We not only have the Volks-
wagen Academy, which is a $40 million facility, substantially training every last person who works at Volkswagen. We have that same kind of relationship with a myriad of other companies – 104 exactly that we have a training relationship with.”
Yet, surprisingly, Catanzaro said he doesn’t care how many college graduates Chattanooga State turns out.
“If they don’t have the skills and work ethic, it isn’t worth it,” he said. “I’m not interested in turning people out who can’t work and can’t produce. It’s a waste of our resources to taxpayers and a waste of their time.”
What Catanzaro does want to do is extend an invitation to all community members if Chattanooga State can do any leadership training, real estate business training or any other training for them.
Catanzaro then took a minute to ask for votes for the Celebrity Conductor Contest 2011 to benefit the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera that will occur during the Pops on the River Concert July 3. To vote for him online, visit www.chattanoogasymphony.org, where the profiles for the other contestants are also available.
Martha Miller reminded the group that the downtown prize pack, including a hotel stay at the Doubletree, is still taking entry tickets that can be obtained through bringing a guest to the next meeting, and two more tickets if that guest joins WCR.
WCR members are reminded that governing board meetings are open meetings where members are welcome to observe and are encouraged to get involved.
The next governing board meeting is April 20 at GCAR from 10 to 11:30 a.m. The joint meeting with The Home Builders Association of Southern Tennessee and Women’s Council and Business Resource and Networking Meeting will be May 4 at Doubletree Hotel at 11:30 a.m.