February 5, 2025 • 38 mins
Dr. Thomas O'Brien is Associate Dean at the College of Professional and Continuing Education (CPACE) at Cal State Long Beach and is also the Deputy Director of the METRANS Transportation Consortium. He directs the California Local Technical Assistance Program (CALTAP) Center, or CalTAP, and previously led CPaCE's Center for International Trade and Transportation. His work focuses on logistics, supply chain management, and transportation workforce. Dr. O'Brien holds a Master's and Ph.D. from USC and is an Eno and Eisenhower Transportation Fellow.
Come join us as we pick Dr. O'Brien's brain on the subject of Global Logistics and the many career paths anyone can take.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, what's going on everybody from the College of Professional and Continuing Education.
(00:17):
I'm Dr. Pahole Sookkasikon with Pacing Your Future, a podcast that charts the course of today's
most exciting industries and the people that helped shape them.
Discover the many opportunities within the numerous fields we cover and be inspired by
the stories of notable individuals who have paved their own paths.
And just like our name suggests, our mission is to pace ahead.
(00:41):
Be Proactive, Adaptable, Creative, and Engaged.
Whether you're seeking career insights, industry trends, or are just simply inquisitive, let's
pace your future together.
Today we're joined by Dr. Tom O'Brien.
He's the Associate Dean at the College of Professional and Continuing Education, or
CPACE, at Cal State Long Beach, and is also the Deputy Director of MetTrans Transportation
(01:04):
Consortium.
He directs the California Local Technical Assistance Program Center, or CALTAP, and
previously led CPACE's Center for International Trade and Transportation.
His work focuses on logistics, supply chain management, and transportation workforce.
Dr. O'Brien holds a master's and PhD from USC and is an Eno and Eisenhower Transportation
(01:26):
Fellow.
Welcome to the show, Dr.
Thank you.
It's good to be here.
Thank you.
So let's just start off with something fun.
Imagine your industry is the main character in a blockbuster because LA and why not?
What's the plot and who are its main characters?
Okay, it's a great question.
And look, if Die Hard can be a Christmas movie, then almost anything can be a logistics movie,
(01:48):
right?
In fact, we've already had logistics movies, but we just haven't marketed them, right?
Towering Inferno, Contagion, Earthquake, those are all about failures in logistics and supply
chain.
But to answer your question more directly, I keep a novel on my desk at the office.
It's called Precipice, and it was written by a former editor at the LA Times named Daniel
(02:13):
Pollock in the late 1990s.
And it was done in conjunction with the Council of Logistics Management as a way to sort of
engage a more general audience about logistics and explain what it was.
And it's the blueprint for that blockbuster you're talking about.
It's a novel with a logistician as the key protagonist.
(02:37):
She's essentially a detective trying to figure out where there's a breakdown in the supply
chain of her family business.
But it's got global intrigue and exotic places like Kauai that are part of the narrative.
And there's a villain.
And the villain is messing up the logistics and supply chain system.
(02:59):
So I think it would be a perfect blueprint as long as we can get a good truck driver
in there too, because every good logistics blockbuster needs a truck driver you can root
for, right?
And there hasn't been a great one since Convoy, I don't think.
Nice, it's like a mix of the technical and the paradisiacal.
So it's great.
Let's just get for it.
(03:20):
As Associate Dean of CPACE, what do you see as the strengths of the College of Professional
and Continuing Education?
And how do these strengths service the community, the students, and its constituents?
It's another good question.
And almost any continuing ed unit at a university has as one of its strengths its flexibility
(03:40):
and its ability to be nimble.
I mean, we're not only in the business, but it's actually our mandate to work with external
partners, to have our pulse or our finger on the pulse of changing trends with regard
to workforce development.
So that's a general strength for a continuing ed unit.
(04:01):
In Long Beach, I think our particular strength is that we do it with industry partners and
governmental partners that we have a long time track record in working with.
Long Beach is in many ways has a small town feel in a megalopolis.
I know a lot of people think of Long Beach almost as a company town.
(04:22):
It used to be Navy, now it's a port, or it may be healthcare.
And that gives us an opportunity to clearly identify the needs of those communities.
And we know all the players.
And so we can be as responsive as possible.
And I think that's one of the real strengths that we have at CPaCE at Cal State Long Beach.
That's great.
I mean, the next question I had was like, why Long Beach?
(04:44):
And what does CPaCE bring to the local community and its residents?
And what you just painted sounded like it was an interwoven kind of community that everyone
feeds off each other and kind of supports one another through job placement, creative
elements, just a community that looks out for one another.
And I think that extends to civic life as well.
I mean, you see the same people at the summer concerts in the park, right?
(05:08):
The same people that you're working with.
The other thing, though, that's important about Long Beach is there are challenges.
We're in a very expensive place to live.
And there are a lot of communities that are under threat from issues like homelessness,
right?
And so the work that we do is even more important in this local community because we're in the
(05:31):
business of providing means to sustainable jobs to a middle class way of living that
should be afforded to everybody.
Yeah, definitely.
That reminds me of something that a former colleague of mine used to say all the time
is we lift as we climb.
(05:52):
And I think that's very apropos to what the work that you do, but also the work that CPaCE
does at Cal State Long Beach for the city and for its residents.
Yeah.
So one of the things that obviously we're doing a podcast right now and it's about
development, about career development and sharing people's passions and how they got
there.
So as the associate dean, could you help explain the concept of pacing your future and how
(06:18):
it applies to students and professionals in the trade and transportation industry and
how this approach can help navigate their career paths and long term success?
Yeah, I mean, I think I like the notion of pacing your future first and foremost because
the idea of pacing suggests it's a marathon and not a sprint.
(06:40):
And that's true when it comes to workforce development.
You can have that intensive period as a student in an undergraduate program or a graduate
program, but you better be ready for lifelong learning and long life learning.
And that's what sort of this four part notion that includes adaptability and creativity
(07:01):
and engagement means for the student.
It's being open to change.
It's being open to the idea that where you started on the path may not be where you end
up, where you end up, might be an entirely different path altogether, but with a start
that made a lot of sense at the time.
(07:23):
And so the idea of that you also have to do it proactively, right?
That last "E", engagement means that you can't just sit and wait for information and opportunity
to come for you.
You have to put yourself in the best position possible to take advantage of it.
And what we tell our students is do what you can to network, take advantage of memberships
(07:49):
and organizations that are free when you're a student, because that's going to lay the
groundwork for that type of engagement that will translate into success down the road
over the long term.
Of course.
I mean, a lot of what you just said sounds like there's elements of futurism, right?
And thinking ahead, thinking about your life goals, the trajectory you want to go on, right?
(08:11):
And so I think that segues into the next discussion of like future directions and what future
trends in career development does CPaCE anticipate and how well its programs evolve in preparation
of having these individuals prepare for these changes.
Yeah.
So I think the trends we want to observe are sort of workplace and industry and government
(08:34):
trends, but it's also changes in trends in how education is delivered and what we have
to do on our side of the equation.
So for the trade and transportation sector, which I'm most familiar with, I see a blending
of disciplines and areas of expertise.
(08:57):
Getting a supply chain degree is going to be valuable at some point, but it may not
be all you need to prepare yourself for success in the future.
I think if we think about what the future transportation worker is going to be, it's
not necessarily going to be somebody who has knowledge about the transport systems.
(09:20):
A cyber security expert might find themselves in the transportation arena and call themselves
a transportation professional.
So the first thing that I think we're going to have to be prepared to do is find ways
to mix core curricula from different disciplines in maybe a more menu-driven approach that
(09:40):
gives the students the opportunity to choose one from column A and one from column B and
more direct their educational experience.
We still have to provide the foundation and the core, but giving them the opportunity
to add certificates to a degree program or go off and sort of do a transportation degree
with a cyber security certificate or minor is going to make them more prepared for the
(10:04):
future.
I think the other trend that we're going to have to look for is an interest on the part
of the student to accumulate and demonstrate their knowledge of specific skills.
A degree tells you one thing.
I have an MBA from Cal State Long Beach tells you something about your ability to get through
(10:26):
a quality program.
But employers are increasingly interested in knowing what are the core components that
you learned in that program.
And that's where, you know, sort of micro credentials and digital badges become more
important and the education sector has been a little slow on the uptake to sort of respond
to those employer and student demands to say, I need to have a portfolio of skills that
(10:52):
I can share with an employer.
The degree is one thing, but I need to pull apart, pull apart the layers of the onion
and tell them what I actually can do with it.
And then the other thing that is an exciting change and opportunity is that we have a lot
of students who come back to us who have acquired deep knowledge of particular areas that have
(11:16):
come through work experience, military experience, whatever it might be, not traditional knowledge
gained in the classroom.
But it sets them up nicely for success if they want to complete a degree or move on
to the next degree.
So having specific programs and an infrastructure in place to award what we call CPL, credit
for prior learning, is going to be essential for us to service a student population that
(11:43):
frankly is dwindling in size.
And so we're going to have to set ourselves apart from other institutions of higher education
and say, we're going to meet the student where they are.
And that's the biggest change that we're going to have to embrace in higher education.
Yeah, that's amazing.
I mean, I think one of the big things, I mean, working with the CPACE that I've seen is that,
(12:07):
you know, we take in and we support folks that come from different facets of life, right,
and have different experiences or at different parts of their career.
And I think one of the things that you touched upon just now that's amazing is that, you
know, you don't have to take the cookie cutter route or you don't have to go to school in
a certain fashion, right?
You can go to work.
(12:27):
You can even if you want to come back, you're able to have that flexibility.
And I think flexibility is a key thing for a lot of our students and the people who participate
in CPACE.
In addition, employers have gotten really good at telling us, right, and the message
is very clear.
We have our own company culture.
(12:49):
We have our own way of doing business and we have particular processes and skills that
we want to teach.
Yeah.
And we're part of this educational equation.
So what you can do as an educational institution is provide as much of the foundation, the
base that makes them a good, makes them a good employee.
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And I think that at a university, that also means making them a good citizen, like so
preparing them to be an effective, you know, an effective worker, somebody who contributes,
somebody who's responsible, somebody who is well read, somebody who writes well.
Those are all things that are really important.
And then in that way, the employer, whether it's a government agency or private industry,
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the nonprofit sector becomes a partner with us in the long time education of that worker.
And that means that they can come back to us, right, when they're ready for the next
level, which is kind of nice.
And I think that's the way that education is not only going to survive, but thrive.
Yeah.
And then it sounds a lot like, you know, that CPACE and the folks who work there, like we're
(13:56):
invested and there's an investment that we want to cultivate relationships that last lifetimes,
right?
And that we care for our students, we care for their successes and their wellbeing.
And that they go through this program, we want to set them up for success for their
future.
I think as the average, if there is such a thing, the average student changes, right?
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They're not 18 to 23 anymore, right?
Those students come with a different set of needs that maybe it's not our position as
a university to address entirely, but we at least have to be aware of them, right?
If you're a working mother, you know, single parent, working professional, active duty
(14:41):
military, you have demands for different kinds of educational services that have to be offered
at different times.
And again, maybe we can't answer all of those needs, but we can plan better and connect
them to services where they can be, or that make it easier for them to take part in our
programs.
(15:01):
And that's something we haven't always done a great job of, but that we're going to have
to if we're going to stand out in a pretty crowded education marketplace.
Sure.
So I think one of the things that comes to mind is how do we make, then how do we meeting
these few folks in the middle, right?
How do we adjust for them and cultivate a curriculum that creates like lifelong learning?
(15:25):
I mean, there's some basic things we can do, and it's not easy for a university to change,
right?
And it takes more resources to provide counseling support or advising support off the traditional
nine to five calendar, but we have to start there, right?
We have to make advisement and services available after 5 p.m. or on the weekends.
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And that's where I think we start.
The other thing though that we are already doing is providing a forum for an exchange
that often happens only on our campus that we can expand to include the community and
future students, right?
If we're holding town halls or conferences, right?
(16:09):
And if we're only talking to ourselves as an education or a Cal State Long Beach community,
we're really not doing our job.
But opening those opportunities up to potential students in the community helps us build the
audience for new programs we want to develop.
Of course.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
So you know, we talk about lifelong learning and how we're trying to prepare our students
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for that and we're trying to prepare folks who want to participate in CPaCE.
Do you think lifelong learning is crucial to the industries that work alongside CPaCE?
It's essential to all industries these days, partly because you can learn the core of your
business, right?
If you're in supply chain, it's pricing and economics, but it's also the institutional
(16:56):
issues, the impact of regulatory measures.
But those are ever changing.
And the impact of new technologies is going to change.
If you were studying IT, you know, 15 years ago, it's going to be vastly different than
the types of ITs that are going to be impacting the industry now.
You have to be prepared for those refresher courses that allow you to explore what AI
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means, right?
The internet's impact, right, on helping to standardize communications and information
flows across supply chains, you know, across global boundaries was one thing.
But the impact of artificial intelligence and blockchain and digital twinning is something
else altogether.
So you've got to be prepared to go and add to your core set of skills on a regular basis
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just to remain effective on the job.
But the other thing too is so often, whatever it is, again, it's whether I'm thinking about
Long Beach, so healthcare and trade and transportation as being sort of two core areas or bio manufacturing.
Very often, the greatest impacts to the industry, the greatest shocks to the system come from
(18:13):
something that's external to that system.
It could come from regulatory environments.
It could come from a natural disaster.
It could be the change in a political administration, right?
And so you have to be open to understanding and the state of the art in an analysis of
those impacts so you can better prepare for the ones that are coming your way down the
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road.
Yeah.
Just I wanted to circle back to something you mentioned earlier, just so our listeners
can have a better sense of what is available to them and what they can receive at the end.
You mentioned micro credentials and digital badges.
If you could just go into that and tell us.
Sure, right?
So we start with what a traditional degree program is, right?
(19:00):
I think everybody understands that.
It's a bachelor.
It's a master's.
It's an accumulated set of knowledge and skills that you acquire over a longer period of time,
right?
A certificate is sort of a smaller bite at the apple, right?
You're taking sort of a discrete set of knowledge, skills, or abilities that may be connected
(19:24):
to that broader degree, right?
And you take a series of courses, something short of a degree, and that adds up to a certificate,
right?
A micro credential is even a smaller bite at that apple, as it were.
It's looking at individual skills, abilities, knowledge sets that could add up to a certificate
(19:52):
or a degree program, but that allow you to demonstrate, look, I know something about
this topic, right?
Or I've been able to, you know, effectively complete a series of tests that prove that
I know how to use a pivot table, right, in Excel.
(20:13):
As far as I know, there's not an undergraduate degree in Excel.
There's probably a certificate in Excel, right?
But that knowledge of pivot tables is at a small level something that's really useful
to an employer, and that could be turned into a micro credential, whether you've spent one
day or two days or a week learning the skill set.
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The digital badge is the virtual manifestation of your knowledge.
It's something that you can post on LinkedIn, share with an employer, it becomes part of
your digital portfolio that says, here's what I learned, right?
It might be color coded, it might have a particular shape so that it speaks to the needs of a
(20:59):
particular industry or a particular employer.
So the knowledge is accumulated at different stages, right, the micro credential, the certificate,
the degree, and the badge is the way you communicate your commitment to learning about that in
a way that speaks to an employer.
(21:20):
Nice, nice.
You mentioned Excel and pivot tables and just humorously on a side note, I actually was
going through the courses that we provide and I was telling my partner, I was like, maybe I
should take one of these courses because Excel has been the bane of my existence for a while.
It is the single most requested skill set by employers I've talked to across the board.
(21:45):
And I'm happy to say as somebody who studied the humanities, good writing and communications
also comes up there because not everybody has the skill and there's still a lot of business
that's done on a handshake and an ability to communicate and follow through.
So if you can write effectively, communicate effectively, and do a pivot table, you're
(22:09):
golden.
And it's true, I mean, like I am professionally trained in research for my PhD but then I
noticed that when I came outside of academia, pivot tables, Excel, I was just surrounded
by them all the time and you know, you just have to get up on the horse and drive it,
you know, and so Excel is quite important in today's market.
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So another question I had was in terms of like in terms of professional development opportunities,
how does CPaCE serve as a pipeline to these opportunities?
What diverse programs does the college offer to meet current career advancements, including
alternative credentials, like certificates and micro credentials,
(22:51):
which we mentioned, as well as long term growth through degree programs?
Yeah, so CPaCE is in the business of what we would call sort of self-support programs,
right?
But they're all pathways to something else, right?
So it might be a degree program that can't be met through traditional state support,
(23:14):
state services, or has to be offered in a cohort-based way.
So we partner with an academic institution to help promote and get people in the door,
right?
So in that way, CPaCE is a pathway to a traditional degree program, and it could be in social
work, it could be in business, it could be in supply chain, whatever it might be.
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But on the non-credit side, right, what we do is help connect people with things like
micro credentials and digital badging via areas where we know that there's a demand
for employment because we're a self-support unit.
If there wasn't a demand, we couldn't offer the programs.
So by having the certificates and the professional designations and the micro credentials, we're
(24:03):
already providing a service.
But what we can do as a partner in the university is help bridge that micro credential, that
non-credit badge to a degree program if that's where the demand is, right?
One of the things that we've researched in our college is how students use CPaCE as
(24:25):
a pathway to a degree program.
And it turns out there are a number of different ways.
We have students in our global logistics professional program who learn they really like the industry
and that their career opportunities would be enhanced by getting an undergraduate degree
(24:45):
in supply chain or a graduate degree in information systems.
So they're using a CPaCE certificate program as a pathway to a degree program.
And it's a great combination of sort of nuts and bolts operational knowledge with the more
applied analytical knowledge.
That happens in human resource management as an example.
(25:08):
But it's also a pathway for our international students, some of whom are building an interest
in a specific area while they're building their language skills.
And CPaCE programs help them do that, right?
They feel confident, they meet the minimum threshold for language.
And then that allows them to apply for a program on our campus in a traditional degree program.
(25:33):
So going back to that original comment I made about sort of more flexibly designed and offered
programs helps our university and academic partners, right?
Because we help introduce students to Cal State Long Beach before they're admitted into
a degree program.
We're often that first line, that face of the college.
(25:58):
And that's a great thing to be because Cal State Long Beach is a wonderful place to study
and to learn and to live.
That's great.
I think one of the key things that you just mentioned was the fact that we have international
students and that our curriculum and that our services are not just offered to those
who just run Long Beach or in the United States and that we expand our borders, right?
(26:19):
So I think something important to know is that we are open to a lot of different people from
different facets of life.
So.
Yeah.
And that's the exciting, I mean, it's all exciting.
What we do.
But that's particularly exciting to me because in the area of trade and transportation, if
(26:40):
we're not allowing our students to engage with people from a wide set of backgrounds,
we're not preparing them for success in global trade.
Helping them understand languages, helping them understand how business works in different
parts of the world.
They're not going to be as successful.
(27:01):
So the international students who are on our campus and who are working side by side and
studying side by side with domestic students is, in my opinion, what a university should
be doing.
Definitely.
I mean, I think, you know, and that speaks to the industry, our industry partners as
well, who are global leaders like the Port of Long Beach, you know, Biocom, right?
(27:25):
And I think with next week when we have Dr. Noel Hacegaba, the chief operating officer
of the Port of Long Beach, come and conduct a speaker series for our students and those
who participate in CPaCE.
I think that just speaks well to the work that we do and the work that, and the relationships
we cultivate with the community and those beyond, right?
Yeah.
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And there's no, you know, I'm happy to say there's no better testament, I think, to the
work we do and should do is that we have industry support in terms of scholarships for our students.
And I'm talking about professional certificate students, not students in degree programs.
(28:06):
They need support as well, but very often students in the non-credit programs can't
tap into the same resources as students in degree programs have.
There just aren't as many scholarship opportunities.
And the commitment of this trade and transportation sector to education is amazing, right?
(28:27):
So we've got scholarship money that goes to students who want to study logistics via the
certificate program.
And the fact that, you know, Dr. Hacegaba is willing to come and talk to the students
demonstrates his commitment and the commitment of the entire Port of Long Beach.
It comes from the top down to education.
And, you know, Mario Cordero, the CEO, graduate of our institution, believer in education,
(28:55):
that makes this relationship even stronger and to the benefit of all of us.
Definitely.
I mean, I think, you know, one thing that may be useful for our listeners and our potential
and prospect students, are there any limitations or do we have any prerequisites for those
who can apply for scholarships?
(29:17):
So on the non-credit side, no, the good news is that if you're committed and you demonstrate
that commitment, there are resources that make it possible for you to take a certificate
program.
Obviously, in degree programs, there are more criteria, right?
Understandably so.
But it's the idea of making opportunity available to everyone.
(29:41):
But you know, no, in fact, a more non-traditional background may stand out with the scholarship
review committee for the logistics program, right?
If you're not a scholar by traditional definitions, but you've worked in the trenches in logistics
or you've had a background that demonstrates you've had to show initiative and you've
(30:06):
been resourceful, that's going to stand out to an employer who sees a lot of people come
through the door.
And that's going to make you stand out in the same way for a scholarship application.
We have some amazing success stories of people whose lives have been changed just by having
access to the knowledge and the expertise that comes through our programs.
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And these are people who may have moved up the ranks in a trucking company or who have
sort of taken a leap of faith and joined the industry after losing a job somewhere else.
And those are the stories we want to tell.
Amazing.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the key reasons why this podcast was birthed, to tell
(30:56):
stories, right?
And so it's just talking about stories of impact, talking about everyday lives who have
been changed and impacted by the different programs that CPaCE offers and how people have
bettered their lives, how they've seen the world in different ways.
And so one of the questions we had that to you and thinking about this new initiative
(31:16):
of the podcast as well as the speaker series that we have, why is storytelling so important
helping students learn about careers, especially those in demand for the future?
Well, I think part of our mission as a university is to make opportunities available to the
community that we serve, particularly as a Cal State institution, right?
(31:40):
And our experience, right, working with industry professionals and from, you know, 28 years
of doing this, is that a lot of students and their families and the people who help them
make decisions about where to go after high school, they're not aware of the range of
opportunity.
And I'll go back to the trade and transportation sector.
(32:03):
People think about truck driving, which is a noble profession, right?
The truck driver is essential to the supply chain.
We found that out during COVID.
But if you're an economist or you're a policy expert or you're an IT person, there's a home
for you in trade and transportation.
(32:23):
Your skills are needed.
And so us letting students know at the high school level, at the grade school level, is
critical to our mission.
First of all, it helps feed the pipeline, right?
If a student knows there's opportunities in this when they're making decisions at the middle
school to show up to class on time and to develop good study habits, that opportunity
(32:47):
is going to be there for them when they graduate high school and they connect those good practices
with content specific knowledge.
So part of what we do, because normally we've been sort of focused on the career preparation.
Students come to us, we teach them something.
We're not doing ourselves any favors if we don't reach back out to the middle school
(33:11):
and high school and help them with the career awareness portion of it.
The career awareness, the preparedness and the preparation have to follow.
They have to occur simultaneously as well, but you have to start with the awareness of
what's possible.
And opening up students' eyes to the possibility, including getting them on campus so they can
(33:32):
and having them connect with working professionals can change lives and help them think about
what they want to do in the future.
And then our job, our role is to help prepare them to be successful wherever they land.
Definitely.
And you mentioned just now that awareness for middle schoolers and high schoolers, early
(33:52):
development in these programs.
Can you go into detail about those?
Yeah, I mean, there's a number of really good programs now that didn't exist 20 years ago
that engaged the university with school districts in their backyard.
There are increased opportunities for dual enrollment, so where high school students
(34:13):
can take a college level course on their campus, maybe taught by a community college or university
instructor.
We have what I think is a unique and successful program with the Port of Long Beach and Long
Beach Unified School District that takes a pathway in logistics and finds a particular
(34:34):
role for the port as industry partner and the university as a partner to the school
district to help prepare students for success in the future.
For us at the university, that role is coordinating industry engagement.
It's helping prepare teachers who didn't sign up to be logistics experts when they got their
teaching credential, but who with the knowledge of how logistics works can infuse it into
(34:59):
their lessons in the classroom and make things even more exciting for the students.
We also help with them in designing capstone projects and curricular materials.
It's been a very successful partnership driven by the port, driven by the school district
with Cal State Long Beach as a partner.
(35:19):
I think that's sort of a model that's ideal for Long Beach, because we talked about it
being a small town in a big city, even though it's a big city.
This is a community driven approach.
It's the community's employer, it's the community's teachers and students, and it's the community's
university with the mission to serve the people who are in our community.
(35:42):
Those K through 12 opportunities are essential.
The great thing I love that sort of closes the circle on this is that those scholarship
opportunities we talked about that come from industry are made available to graduates of
the high school program.
If they want to develop their knowledge and abilities in logistics and get a micro credential,
(36:06):
as we talked about, and a digital badge, they will have resources to come take our logistics
program while they're pursuing an undergraduate degree program at whatever institution they
choose to do so.
It's that maximum flexibility that allows the student to get what they need to succeed
and for us to meet them where they are.
Yeah, I think just to end this great session with you, Dr. O'Brien, we were talking about
(36:31):
elementary school, middle school, high schoolers, and folks who are professionals already, and
how we reach out to all these different people and try to meet them where they are and say
that, like you said, there's a home for you.
I think that's important that there's space for you and we start at any age and at any
(36:52):
kind of space in life where you are just to say that you can advance.
You can dream of another reality as possible for you and that there is still time.
I think that's important.
Yeah, I think that's a good closing message.
I think if we think differently about what it means to graduate.
(37:15):
We use the term commencement, which is a beginning and it's a new beginning.
If we think about the idea that when we graduate, we engage with our students in a way that
keeps them informed about what we do, the new programs we offer, so that they're excited
about looking to us for new opportunities when they're ready.
(37:36):
The last thing I'll add is that the service to community means doing the same thing for
the people in their lives who help them make decisions, so that we're making sure that
the messaging goes out to parents, to school counselors, to boys and girls club directors,
to people in faith-based communities.
(37:58):
Wherever our communities look to for guidance and direction, we want to equip them with
as much knowledge as possible to say, we're your home institution, we're your home university.
As you're making a decision together as a family for the future of this student in your
life, look to us as an option.
We're going to be here for you whenever you're ready for us.
(38:20):
That's amazing and inspiring note to end on.
Thank you, Dr. O'Brien, for joining us and thank you, our listeners, for tuning in to
Pacing Your Future.
We hope today's installment has inspired you and provided valuable insights into the dynamic
world of industry and innovation.
Stay tuned with us for more stories, opportunities and expert advice to help you navigate and
(38:40):
shape your future.
Until next time, keep pacing your future with confidence and curiosity.
Hey, what's going on everybody from the College of Professional and Continuing Education.
(00:17):
I'm Dr. Pahole Sookkasikon with Pacing Your Future, a podcast that charts the course of today's
most exciting industries and the people that helped shape them.
Discover the many opportunities within the numerous fields we cover and be inspired by
the stories of notable individuals who have paved their own paths.
And just like our name suggests, our mission is to pace ahead.
(00:41):
Be Proactive, Adaptable, Creative, and Engaged.
Whether you're seeking career insights, industry trends, or are just simply inquisitive, let's
pace your future together.
Today we're joined by Dr. Tom O'Brien.
He's the Associate Dean at the College of Professional and Continuing Education, or
CPACE, at Cal State Long Beach, and is also the Deputy Director of MetTrans Transportation
(01:04):
Consortium.
He directs the California Local Technical Assistance Program Center, or CALTAP, and
previously led CPACE's Center for International Trade and Transportation.
His work focuses on logistics, supply chain management, and transportation workforce.
Dr. O'Brien holds a master's and PhD from USC and is an Eno and Eisenhower Transportation
(01:26):
Fellow.
Welcome to the show, Dr.
Thank you.
It's good to be here.
Thank you.
So let's just start off with something fun.
Imagine your industry is the main character in a blockbuster because LA and why not?
What's the plot and who are its main characters?
Okay, it's a great question.
And look, if Die Hard can be a Christmas movie, then almost anything can be a logistics movie,
(01:48):
right?
In fact, we've already had logistics movies, but we just haven't marketed them, right?
Towering Inferno, Contagion, Earthquake, those are all about failures in logistics and supply
chain.
But to answer your question more directly, I keep a novel on my desk at the office.
It's called Precipice, and it was written by a former editor at the LA Times named Daniel
(02:13):
Pollock in the late 1990s.
And it was done in conjunction with the Council of Logistics Management as a way to sort of
engage a more general audience about logistics and explain what it was.
And it's the blueprint for that blockbuster you're talking about.
It's a novel with a logistician as the key protagonist.
(02:37):
She's essentially a detective trying to figure out where there's a breakdown in the supply
chain of her family business.
But it's got global intrigue and exotic places like Kauai that are part of the narrative.
And there's a villain.
And the villain is messing up the logistics and supply chain system.
(02:59):
So I think it would be a perfect blueprint as long as we can get a good truck driver
in there too, because every good logistics blockbuster needs a truck driver you can root
for, right?
And there hasn't been a great one since Convoy, I don't think.
Nice, it's like a mix of the technical and the paradisiacal.
So it's great.
Let's just get for it.
(03:20):
As Associate Dean of CPACE, what do you see as the strengths of the College of Professional
and Continuing Education?
And how do these strengths service the community, the students, and its constituents?
It's another good question.
And almost any continuing ed unit at a university has as one of its strengths its flexibility
(03:40):
and its ability to be nimble.
I mean, we're not only in the business, but it's actually our mandate to work with external
partners, to have our pulse or our finger on the pulse of changing trends with regard
to workforce development.
So that's a general strength for a continuing ed unit.
(04:01):
In Long Beach, I think our particular strength is that we do it with industry partners and
governmental partners that we have a long time track record in working with.
Long Beach is in many ways has a small town feel in a megalopolis.
I know a lot of people think of Long Beach almost as a company town.
(04:22):
It used to be Navy, now it's a port, or it may be healthcare.
And that gives us an opportunity to clearly identify the needs of those communities.
And we know all the players.
And so we can be as responsive as possible.
And I think that's one of the real strengths that we have at CPaCE at Cal State Long Beach.
That's great.
I mean, the next question I had was like, why Long Beach?
(04:44):
And what does CPaCE bring to the local community and its residents?
And what you just painted sounded like it was an interwoven kind of community that everyone
feeds off each other and kind of supports one another through job placement, creative
elements, just a community that looks out for one another.
And I think that extends to civic life as well.
I mean, you see the same people at the summer concerts in the park, right?
(05:08):
The same people that you're working with.
The other thing, though, that's important about Long Beach is there are challenges.
We're in a very expensive place to live.
And there are a lot of communities that are under threat from issues like homelessness,
right?
And so the work that we do is even more important in this local community because we're in the
(05:31):
business of providing means to sustainable jobs to a middle class way of living that
should be afforded to everybody.
Yeah, definitely.
That reminds me of something that a former colleague of mine used to say all the time
is we lift as we climb.
(05:52):
And I think that's very apropos to what the work that you do, but also the work that CPaCE
does at Cal State Long Beach for the city and for its residents.
Yeah.
So one of the things that obviously we're doing a podcast right now and it's about
development, about career development and sharing people's passions and how they got
there.
So as the associate dean, could you help explain the concept of pacing your future and how
(06:18):
it applies to students and professionals in the trade and transportation industry and
how this approach can help navigate their career paths and long term success?
Yeah, I mean, I think I like the notion of pacing your future first and foremost because
the idea of pacing suggests it's a marathon and not a sprint.
(06:40):
And that's true when it comes to workforce development.
You can have that intensive period as a student in an undergraduate program or a graduate
program, but you better be ready for lifelong learning and long life learning.
And that's what sort of this four part notion that includes adaptability and creativity
(07:01):
and engagement means for the student.
It's being open to change.
It's being open to the idea that where you started on the path may not be where you end
up, where you end up, might be an entirely different path altogether, but with a start
that made a lot of sense at the time.
(07:23):
And so the idea of that you also have to do it proactively, right?
That last "E", engagement means that you can't just sit and wait for information and opportunity
to come for you.
You have to put yourself in the best position possible to take advantage of it.
And what we tell our students is do what you can to network, take advantage of memberships
(07:49):
and organizations that are free when you're a student, because that's going to lay the
groundwork for that type of engagement that will translate into success down the road
over the long term.
Of course.
I mean, a lot of what you just said sounds like there's elements of futurism, right?
And thinking ahead, thinking about your life goals, the trajectory you want to go on, right?
(08:11):
And so I think that segues into the next discussion of like future directions and what future
trends in career development does CPaCE anticipate and how well its programs evolve in preparation
of having these individuals prepare for these changes.
Yeah.
So I think the trends we want to observe are sort of workplace and industry and government
(08:34):
trends, but it's also changes in trends in how education is delivered and what we have
to do on our side of the equation.
So for the trade and transportation sector, which I'm most familiar with, I see a blending
of disciplines and areas of expertise.
(08:57):
Getting a supply chain degree is going to be valuable at some point, but it may not
be all you need to prepare yourself for success in the future.
I think if we think about what the future transportation worker is going to be, it's
not necessarily going to be somebody who has knowledge about the transport systems.
(09:20):
A cyber security expert might find themselves in the transportation arena and call themselves
a transportation professional.
So the first thing that I think we're going to have to be prepared to do is find ways
to mix core curricula from different disciplines in maybe a more menu-driven approach that
(09:40):
gives the students the opportunity to choose one from column A and one from column B and
more direct their educational experience.
We still have to provide the foundation and the core, but giving them the opportunity
to add certificates to a degree program or go off and sort of do a transportation degree
with a cyber security certificate or minor is going to make them more prepared for the
(10:04):
future.
I think the other trend that we're going to have to look for is an interest on the part
of the student to accumulate and demonstrate their knowledge of specific skills.
A degree tells you one thing.
I have an MBA from Cal State Long Beach tells you something about your ability to get through
(10:26):
a quality program.
But employers are increasingly interested in knowing what are the core components that
you learned in that program.
And that's where, you know, sort of micro credentials and digital badges become more
important and the education sector has been a little slow on the uptake to sort of respond
to those employer and student demands to say, I need to have a portfolio of skills that
(10:52):
I can share with an employer.
The degree is one thing, but I need to pull apart, pull apart the layers of the onion
and tell them what I actually can do with it.
And then the other thing that is an exciting change and opportunity is that we have a lot
of students who come back to us who have acquired deep knowledge of particular areas that have
(11:16):
come through work experience, military experience, whatever it might be, not traditional knowledge
gained in the classroom.
But it sets them up nicely for success if they want to complete a degree or move on
to the next degree.
So having specific programs and an infrastructure in place to award what we call CPL, credit
for prior learning, is going to be essential for us to service a student population that
(11:43):
frankly is dwindling in size.
And so we're going to have to set ourselves apart from other institutions of higher education
and say, we're going to meet the student where they are.
And that's the biggest change that we're going to have to embrace in higher education.
Yeah, that's amazing.
I mean, I think one of the big things, I mean, working with the CPACE that I've seen is that,
(12:07):
you know, we take in and we support folks that come from different facets of life, right,
and have different experiences or at different parts of their career.
And I think one of the things that you touched upon just now that's amazing is that, you
know, you don't have to take the cookie cutter route or you don't have to go to school in
a certain fashion, right?
You can go to work.
(12:27):
You can even if you want to come back, you're able to have that flexibility.
And I think flexibility is a key thing for a lot of our students and the people who participate
in CPACE.
In addition, employers have gotten really good at telling us, right, and the message
is very clear.
We have our own company culture.
(12:49):
We have our own way of doing business and we have particular processes and skills that
we want to teach.
Yeah.
And we're part of this educational equation.
So what you can do as an educational institution is provide as much of the foundation, the
base that makes them a good, makes them a good employee.
(13:09):
And I think that at a university, that also means making them a good citizen, like so
preparing them to be an effective, you know, an effective worker, somebody who contributes,
somebody who's responsible, somebody who is well read, somebody who writes well.
Those are all things that are really important.
And then in that way, the employer, whether it's a government agency or private industry,
(13:32):
the nonprofit sector becomes a partner with us in the long time education of that worker.
And that means that they can come back to us, right, when they're ready for the next
level, which is kind of nice.
And I think that's the way that education is not only going to survive, but thrive.
Yeah.
And then it sounds a lot like, you know, that CPACE and the folks who work there, like we're
(13:56):
invested and there's an investment that we want to cultivate relationships that last lifetimes,
right?
And that we care for our students, we care for their successes and their wellbeing.
And that they go through this program, we want to set them up for success for their
future.
I think as the average, if there is such a thing, the average student changes, right?
(14:19):
They're not 18 to 23 anymore, right?
Those students come with a different set of needs that maybe it's not our position as
a university to address entirely, but we at least have to be aware of them, right?
If you're a working mother, you know, single parent, working professional, active duty
(14:41):
military, you have demands for different kinds of educational services that have to be offered
at different times.
And again, maybe we can't answer all of those needs, but we can plan better and connect
them to services where they can be, or that make it easier for them to take part in our
programs.
(15:01):
And that's something we haven't always done a great job of, but that we're going to have
to if we're going to stand out in a pretty crowded education marketplace.
Sure.
So I think one of the things that comes to mind is how do we make, then how do we meeting
these few folks in the middle, right?
How do we adjust for them and cultivate a curriculum that creates like lifelong learning?
(15:25):
I mean, there's some basic things we can do, and it's not easy for a university to change,
right?
And it takes more resources to provide counseling support or advising support off the traditional
nine to five calendar, but we have to start there, right?
We have to make advisement and services available after 5 p.m. or on the weekends.
(15:48):
And that's where I think we start.
The other thing though that we are already doing is providing a forum for an exchange
that often happens only on our campus that we can expand to include the community and
future students, right?
If we're holding town halls or conferences, right?
(16:09):
And if we're only talking to ourselves as an education or a Cal State Long Beach community,
we're really not doing our job.
But opening those opportunities up to potential students in the community helps us build the
audience for new programs we want to develop.
Of course.
Yeah, that's fascinating.
So you know, we talk about lifelong learning and how we're trying to prepare our students
(16:33):
for that and we're trying to prepare folks who want to participate in CPaCE.
Do you think lifelong learning is crucial to the industries that work alongside CPaCE?
It's essential to all industries these days, partly because you can learn the core of your
business, right?
If you're in supply chain, it's pricing and economics, but it's also the institutional
(16:56):
issues, the impact of regulatory measures.
But those are ever changing.
And the impact of new technologies is going to change.
If you were studying IT, you know, 15 years ago, it's going to be vastly different than
the types of ITs that are going to be impacting the industry now.
You have to be prepared for those refresher courses that allow you to explore what AI
(17:22):
means, right?
The internet's impact, right, on helping to standardize communications and information
flows across supply chains, you know, across global boundaries was one thing.
But the impact of artificial intelligence and blockchain and digital twinning is something
else altogether.
So you've got to be prepared to go and add to your core set of skills on a regular basis
(17:47):
just to remain effective on the job.
But the other thing too is so often, whatever it is, again, it's whether I'm thinking about
Long Beach, so healthcare and trade and transportation as being sort of two core areas or bio manufacturing.
Very often, the greatest impacts to the industry, the greatest shocks to the system come from
(18:13):
something that's external to that system.
It could come from regulatory environments.
It could come from a natural disaster.
It could be the change in a political administration, right?
And so you have to be open to understanding and the state of the art in an analysis of
those impacts so you can better prepare for the ones that are coming your way down the
(18:36):
road.
Yeah.
Just I wanted to circle back to something you mentioned earlier, just so our listeners
can have a better sense of what is available to them and what they can receive at the end.
You mentioned micro credentials and digital badges.
If you could just go into that and tell us.
Sure, right?
So we start with what a traditional degree program is, right?
(19:00):
I think everybody understands that.
It's a bachelor.
It's a master's.
It's an accumulated set of knowledge and skills that you acquire over a longer period of time,
right?
A certificate is sort of a smaller bite at the apple, right?
You're taking sort of a discrete set of knowledge, skills, or abilities that may be connected
(19:24):
to that broader degree, right?
And you take a series of courses, something short of a degree, and that adds up to a certificate,
right?
A micro credential is even a smaller bite at that apple, as it were.
It's looking at individual skills, abilities, knowledge sets that could add up to a certificate
(19:52):
or a degree program, but that allow you to demonstrate, look, I know something about
this topic, right?
Or I've been able to, you know, effectively complete a series of tests that prove that
I know how to use a pivot table, right, in Excel.
(20:13):
As far as I know, there's not an undergraduate degree in Excel.
There's probably a certificate in Excel, right?
But that knowledge of pivot tables is at a small level something that's really useful
to an employer, and that could be turned into a micro credential, whether you've spent one
day or two days or a week learning the skill set.
(20:36):
The digital badge is the virtual manifestation of your knowledge.
It's something that you can post on LinkedIn, share with an employer, it becomes part of
your digital portfolio that says, here's what I learned, right?
It might be color coded, it might have a particular shape so that it speaks to the needs of a
(20:59):
particular industry or a particular employer.
So the knowledge is accumulated at different stages, right, the micro credential, the certificate,
the degree, and the badge is the way you communicate your commitment to learning about that in
a way that speaks to an employer.
(21:20):
Nice, nice.
You mentioned Excel and pivot tables and just humorously on a side note, I actually was
going through the courses that we provide and I was telling my partner, I was like, maybe I
should take one of these courses because Excel has been the bane of my existence for a while.
It is the single most requested skill set by employers I've talked to across the board.
(21:45):
And I'm happy to say as somebody who studied the humanities, good writing and communications
also comes up there because not everybody has the skill and there's still a lot of business
that's done on a handshake and an ability to communicate and follow through.
So if you can write effectively, communicate effectively, and do a pivot table, you're
(22:09):
golden.
And it's true, I mean, like I am professionally trained in research for my PhD but then I
noticed that when I came outside of academia, pivot tables, Excel, I was just surrounded
by them all the time and you know, you just have to get up on the horse and drive it,
you know, and so Excel is quite important in today's market.
(22:30):
So another question I had was in terms of like in terms of professional development opportunities,
how does CPaCE serve as a pipeline to these opportunities?
What diverse programs does the college offer to meet current career advancements, including
alternative credentials, like certificates and micro credentials,
(22:51):
which we mentioned, as well as long term growth through degree programs?
Yeah, so CPaCE is in the business of what we would call sort of self-support programs,
right?
But they're all pathways to something else, right?
So it might be a degree program that can't be met through traditional state support,
(23:14):
state services, or has to be offered in a cohort-based way.
So we partner with an academic institution to help promote and get people in the door,
right?
So in that way, CPaCE is a pathway to a traditional degree program, and it could be in social
work, it could be in business, it could be in supply chain, whatever it might be.
(23:37):
But on the non-credit side, right, what we do is help connect people with things like
micro credentials and digital badging via areas where we know that there's a demand
for employment because we're a self-support unit.
If there wasn't a demand, we couldn't offer the programs.
So by having the certificates and the professional designations and the micro credentials, we're
(24:03):
already providing a service.
But what we can do as a partner in the university is help bridge that micro credential, that
non-credit badge to a degree program if that's where the demand is, right?
One of the things that we've researched in our college is how students use CPaCE as
(24:25):
a pathway to a degree program.
And it turns out there are a number of different ways.
We have students in our global logistics professional program who learn they really like the industry
and that their career opportunities would be enhanced by getting an undergraduate degree
(24:45):
in supply chain or a graduate degree in information systems.
So they're using a CPaCE certificate program as a pathway to a degree program.
And it's a great combination of sort of nuts and bolts operational knowledge with the more
applied analytical knowledge.
That happens in human resource management as an example.
(25:08):
But it's also a pathway for our international students, some of whom are building an interest
in a specific area while they're building their language skills.
And CPaCE programs help them do that, right?
They feel confident, they meet the minimum threshold for language.
And then that allows them to apply for a program on our campus in a traditional degree program.
(25:33):
So going back to that original comment I made about sort of more flexibly designed and offered
programs helps our university and academic partners, right?
Because we help introduce students to Cal State Long Beach before they're admitted into
a degree program.
We're often that first line, that face of the college.
(25:58):
And that's a great thing to be because Cal State Long Beach is a wonderful place to study
and to learn and to live.
That's great.
I think one of the key things that you just mentioned was the fact that we have international
students and that our curriculum and that our services are not just offered to those
who just run Long Beach or in the United States and that we expand our borders, right?
(26:19):
So I think something important to know is that we are open to a lot of different people from
different facets of life.
So.
Yeah.
And that's the exciting, I mean, it's all exciting.
What we do.
But that's particularly exciting to me because in the area of trade and transportation, if
(26:40):
we're not allowing our students to engage with people from a wide set of backgrounds,
we're not preparing them for success in global trade.
Helping them understand languages, helping them understand how business works in different
parts of the world.
They're not going to be as successful.
(27:01):
So the international students who are on our campus and who are working side by side and
studying side by side with domestic students is, in my opinion, what a university should
be doing.
Definitely.
I mean, I think, you know, and that speaks to the industry, our industry partners as
well, who are global leaders like the Port of Long Beach, you know, Biocom, right?
(27:25):
And I think with next week when we have Dr. Noel Hacegaba, the chief operating officer
of the Port of Long Beach, come and conduct a speaker series for our students and those
who participate in CPaCE.
I think that just speaks well to the work that we do and the work that, and the relationships
we cultivate with the community and those beyond, right?
Yeah.
(27:45):
And there's no, you know, I'm happy to say there's no better testament, I think, to the
work we do and should do is that we have industry support in terms of scholarships for our students.
And I'm talking about professional certificate students, not students in degree programs.
(28:06):
They need support as well, but very often students in the non-credit programs can't
tap into the same resources as students in degree programs have.
There just aren't as many scholarship opportunities.
And the commitment of this trade and transportation sector to education is amazing, right?
(28:27):
So we've got scholarship money that goes to students who want to study logistics via the
certificate program.
And the fact that, you know, Dr. Hacegaba is willing to come and talk to the students
demonstrates his commitment and the commitment of the entire Port of Long Beach.
It comes from the top down to education.
And, you know, Mario Cordero, the CEO, graduate of our institution, believer in education,
(28:55):
that makes this relationship even stronger and to the benefit of all of us.
Definitely.
I mean, I think, you know, one thing that may be useful for our listeners and our potential
and prospect students, are there any limitations or do we have any prerequisites for those
who can apply for scholarships?
(29:17):
So on the non-credit side, no, the good news is that if you're committed and you demonstrate
that commitment, there are resources that make it possible for you to take a certificate
program.
Obviously, in degree programs, there are more criteria, right?
Understandably so.
But it's the idea of making opportunity available to everyone.
(29:41):
But you know, no, in fact, a more non-traditional background may stand out with the scholarship
review committee for the logistics program, right?
If you're not a scholar by traditional definitions, but you've worked in the trenches in logistics
or you've had a background that demonstrates you've had to show initiative and you've
(30:06):
been resourceful, that's going to stand out to an employer who sees a lot of people come
through the door.
And that's going to make you stand out in the same way for a scholarship application.
We have some amazing success stories of people whose lives have been changed just by having
access to the knowledge and the expertise that comes through our programs.
(30:31):
And these are people who may have moved up the ranks in a trucking company or who have
sort of taken a leap of faith and joined the industry after losing a job somewhere else.
And those are the stories we want to tell.
Amazing.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the key reasons why this podcast was birthed, to tell
(30:56):
stories, right?
And so it's just talking about stories of impact, talking about everyday lives who have
been changed and impacted by the different programs that CPaCE offers and how people have
bettered their lives, how they've seen the world in different ways.
And so one of the questions we had that to you and thinking about this new initiative
(31:16):
of the podcast as well as the speaker series that we have, why is storytelling so important
helping students learn about careers, especially those in demand for the future?
Well, I think part of our mission as a university is to make opportunities available to the
community that we serve, particularly as a Cal State institution, right?
(31:40):
And our experience, right, working with industry professionals and from, you know, 28 years
of doing this, is that a lot of students and their families and the people who help them
make decisions about where to go after high school, they're not aware of the range of
opportunity.
And I'll go back to the trade and transportation sector.
(32:03):
People think about truck driving, which is a noble profession, right?
The truck driver is essential to the supply chain.
We found that out during COVID.
But if you're an economist or you're a policy expert or you're an IT person, there's a home
for you in trade and transportation.
(32:23):
Your skills are needed.
And so us letting students know at the high school level, at the grade school level, is
critical to our mission.
First of all, it helps feed the pipeline, right?
If a student knows there's opportunities in this when they're making decisions at the middle
school to show up to class on time and to develop good study habits, that opportunity
(32:47):
is going to be there for them when they graduate high school and they connect those good practices
with content specific knowledge.
So part of what we do, because normally we've been sort of focused on the career preparation.
Students come to us, we teach them something.
We're not doing ourselves any favors if we don't reach back out to the middle school
(33:11):
and high school and help them with the career awareness portion of it.
The career awareness, the preparedness and the preparation have to follow.
They have to occur simultaneously as well, but you have to start with the awareness of
what's possible.
And opening up students' eyes to the possibility, including getting them on campus so they can
(33:32):
and having them connect with working professionals can change lives and help them think about
what they want to do in the future.
And then our job, our role is to help prepare them to be successful wherever they land.
Definitely.
And you mentioned just now that awareness for middle schoolers and high schoolers, early
(33:52):
development in these programs.
Can you go into detail about those?
Yeah, I mean, there's a number of really good programs now that didn't exist 20 years ago
that engaged the university with school districts in their backyard.
There are increased opportunities for dual enrollment, so where high school students
(34:13):
can take a college level course on their campus, maybe taught by a community college or university
instructor.
We have what I think is a unique and successful program with the Port of Long Beach and Long
Beach Unified School District that takes a pathway in logistics and finds a particular
(34:34):
role for the port as industry partner and the university as a partner to the school
district to help prepare students for success in the future.
For us at the university, that role is coordinating industry engagement.
It's helping prepare teachers who didn't sign up to be logistics experts when they got their
teaching credential, but who with the knowledge of how logistics works can infuse it into
(34:59):
their lessons in the classroom and make things even more exciting for the students.
We also help with them in designing capstone projects and curricular materials.
It's been a very successful partnership driven by the port, driven by the school district
with Cal State Long Beach as a partner.
(35:19):
I think that's sort of a model that's ideal for Long Beach, because we talked about it
being a small town in a big city, even though it's a big city.
This is a community driven approach.
It's the community's employer, it's the community's teachers and students, and it's the community's
university with the mission to serve the people who are in our community.
(35:42):
Those K through 12 opportunities are essential.
The great thing I love that sort of closes the circle on this is that those scholarship
opportunities we talked about that come from industry are made available to graduates of
the high school program.
If they want to develop their knowledge and abilities in logistics and get a micro credential,
(36:06):
as we talked about, and a digital badge, they will have resources to come take our logistics
program while they're pursuing an undergraduate degree program at whatever institution they
choose to do so.
It's that maximum flexibility that allows the student to get what they need to succeed
and for us to meet them where they are.
Yeah, I think just to end this great session with you, Dr. O'Brien, we were talking about
(36:31):
elementary school, middle school, high schoolers, and folks who are professionals already, and
how we reach out to all these different people and try to meet them where they are and say
that, like you said, there's a home for you.
I think that's important that there's space for you and we start at any age and at any
(36:52):
kind of space in life where you are just to say that you can advance.
You can dream of another reality as possible for you and that there is still time.
I think that's important.
Yeah, I think that's a good closing message.
I think if we think differently about what it means to graduate.
(37:15):
We use the term commencement, which is a beginning and it's a new beginning.
If we think about the idea that when we graduate, we engage with our students in a way that
keeps them informed about what we do, the new programs we offer, so that they're excited
about looking to us for new opportunities when they're ready.
(37:36):
The last thing I'll add is that the service to community means doing the same thing for
the people in their lives who help them make decisions, so that we're making sure that
the messaging goes out to parents, to school counselors, to boys and girls club directors,
to people in faith-based communities.
(37:58):
Wherever our communities look to for guidance and direction, we want to equip them with
as much knowledge as possible to say, we're your home institution, we're your home university.
As you're making a decision together as a family for the future of this student in your
life, look to us as an option.
We're going to be here for you whenever you're ready for us.
(38:20):
That's amazing and inspiring note to end on.
Thank you, Dr. O'Brien, for joining us and thank you, our listeners, for tuning in to
Pacing Your Future.
We hope today's installment has inspired you and provided valuable insights into the dynamic
world of industry and innovation.
Stay tuned with us for more stories, opportunities and expert advice to help you navigate and
(38:40):
shape your future.
Until next time, keep pacing your future with confidence and curiosity.
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