Local college celebrates 50 years of job-based training for youth and adults

LOGAN — It’s been providing marketable training for many decades in Cache Valley and it has reached a milestone. Bridgerland Technical College, also known as B-Tech, is turning 50 years old.

A celebration will be held this Friday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. outside at their main campus at 1301 North 600 West in Logan. There will be free food, live bands, career days-type booths, kids activities, petting zoos and more.

On KVNU’s For the People program on Tuesday, college president Chad Campbell gave a brief history of the college.

“I’m the fourth president at Bridgerland Technical College, the first one is a gentleman by the name of Stanley Richardson who served for about three years, then a gentleman by the name of Sam Gordon for another several years.

“Then Dr. Richard L. Maughan became president, he was the president of Bridgerland for 40 years and he made amazing changes at the college, turned it into a college,” he explained.

Campbell said when he started it was known as Bridgerland Area Vocational Center, after that it was Bridgerland Applied Technology Center, then the center became a college, and now is known as Bridgerland Technical College.

He said the center started offering courses and then eventually offered technical education programs in rented facilities throughout the valley wherever they could possibly get one.

Then President Maughan was successful in the early 1980’s in getting the Utah legislature to purchase the old Wurlitzer Piano Factory and over a period of years turned it into a state-of-the art technical facility. Then, later on, he was instrumental in getting the nearby Bourns building and turned that into the West Campus.

Also on the program was Chief Development Officer Frank Stewart, he agreed that B-Tech is a very economical way to boost your education, or change careers without walking away with decades of student loans to pay off.

“Absolutely, that’s one of the critical aspects of what we’re trying to do publicly is make sure that our high school students realize they can take Bridgerland courses, actually by legislative mandate from the Governor and from the legislature, for no cost. Every year we’re excited to see a couple of students that come through and actually graduate from high school with a certificate simultaneously from Bridgerland,” said Stewart.

As for the future, there’s a new 75,000 square foot Health Sciences building that will be going in on the corner of 1400 North and 600 West with the groundbreaking this fall.

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