OLDS — Newly-appointed Olds College of Agriculture & Technology President Debbie Thompson is hitting the ground running after being named to the position May 1.
Thompson served as interim president for about eight months after the departure of Ben Cecil.
Before serving as interim president, Thompson was the college’s vice-president academic. When she became interim president, that role fell to Dalin Bullock.
Olds College Board of Governors Chair Al Kemmere was asked if Bullock will now get that role on a permanent basis.
“That remains to be seen,” he said, adding that’s a decision for Thompson to make.
Thompson outlined some of her plans during an interview with the Albertan.
In her immediate sights was a ground-breaking ceremony for a $63 million renovation and expansion of the college’s W.J. Elliott Trades Building. Advanced Education Minister Rajan Sawhney was on hand for the May 9 ceremony.
Also this month, the college’s budget goes before the board of governors for approval.
After that are convocation ceremonies in June.
Thompson said it will feature the college’s largest-ever graduating class. More than 700 people are expected to attend this year.
“Last year was the first year that we split it into two ceremonies because we couldn't fit them all in,” she said.
Then in a few months, the college’s strategic plan will be unveiled.
“We did pretty extensive consultation with our internal and external communities, and so we'll look to that as a road map for how we'll educate our learners, how we'll drive innovation and support our people and partnerships,” she said.
“We'll continue to focus on our students.”
Thompson said it’s “an incredible honour” to be named president and CEO of the college.
“(I’ve received) lots notes of encouragement and congratulations and so, yeah, I'm grateful and humbled,” she said.
Thompson was asked why she went for the job and what she likes about it.
She said she loves education, noting she spent about 20 years in kindergarten to Grade 12 education, rising to the level of principal, and she’s been at Olds College now for more than 11 years in various roles.
“It’s an incredible privilege to work in education and I love the strategy that that goes along with it,” Thompson said.
“I love the people. Olds College is an incredible organization, and I would say that we've had generations of dedicated, creative, innovative and passionate individuals.
“And I just feel incredible gratitude to be able to continue to work alongside individuals that love the ag sector.
“I grew up in rural Alberta, and so that's been a part of my life. And in fact, I've always worked in rural areas of Alberta, and so that's been really important to me.
“I look forward to an opportunity to continue to focus on our people, our students, our faculty, our staff. They're really the strengths of Olds College.
“And to be able to create the next generation of ag leaders by developing that talent and advancing knowledge and championing that is certainly a blessing for me and an honour.
“I believe that we have an incredibly strong and effective board, and I just appreciate the time they took to look at the organization and what it needed and I'm thrilled to serve in this role for them,” she added.
Thompson said now that a president has been officially named, that should be an advantage for the organization.
“It will allow us to kind of move forward and, and I think just allow some stability across the organization,” she said.
“(With the word ‘interim’ attached to a person’s title) people are always wondering what's next. So I think it'll just help settle that a bit.”
In perhaps a departure from other senior executive searches, Kemmere said the Olds College board focused first on examining whether Thompson was the right fit for the job.
They decided she was, so no other candidates were considered.
“When the committee was tasked to do the sourcing, they reviewed what we had as an interim president first, and Debbie fit the criteria very well, so we did not interview other candidates,” Kemmere said.
“And Debbie had no role in that. She was completely away from that process. It was a board-directed process.
“We decided what we needed and we engaged with all the different entities within the internal part of the college, got their input, built the profile, and then went recruiting from that.”
He said Thompson “met the criteria,” citing her resume both in K-12 education and at the college.
Kemmere said one big goal of the college is a thorough analysis of the entire organization.
“Debbie already started on that, so we're looking for to have her contribute to making it the most efficient the organization can be,” he said.
