A legacy of community: Jess E. Ketcham announces run for LCCC board
CHEYENNE — A fifth-generation Wyomingite and a proud contributing member of the Cheyenne community, Jess E. Ketcham has announced his run for reelection to the Laramie County Community College Board of Trustees.
Should he be reelected, this will be Ketcham's third term, and he said he wants to continue the good work the board has been doing.
"I want to continue what we started. I (helped build) the strategic plan for 2030, so I want to implement that, make sure that it carries forward," Ketcham told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
A father of two boys at East High School, Ketcham also wants to ensure that the youth of Cheyenne have a solid degree-granting institution to attend should they want to stay close to home.
"I want them to be able to have a quality college education as well," Ketcham told the WTE.
Ketcham has been active in several projects at the college over the past eight years; however, he is particularly interested in continuing with Unlocking Opportunity, an extension of the Pathways Program.
The Pathways program defines solid career paths for students; this extension helps them to know what their transfer options are and informs students of the income opportunities of their chosen career path.
"Our students know where they're going to go in four years and get the biggest bang for their buck," Ketcham told the WTE. "College is expensive, and if you come out (and) you don't know what you're doing or know what you want to do, that's a big problem."
The program will also help the board understand what programs are the most successful.
"It'll help us determine which programs are successful, which ones we need to get rid of," Ketcham said. "I think it's a good concept. It would have helped me as a student, but looking at it as an adult, I think it's better to have somebody in a pathway where they're going to make money when they come out of college, as opposed to not."
Ketcham also wants to increase the number of bachelor degrees offered by LCCC. Currently the college can only offer two, per the Wyoming Legislature; however, Ketcham and other board members are working with the Wyoming Community College Commission to get that limit increased.
"The more bachelor's degrees you offer, the more you're going to have people educated for a better workforce in Wyoming," Ketcham told the WTE.
In addition to continued work expanding the opportunities at LCCC, Ketcham hopes to increase the reach of the manufacturing program, if reelected.
There are major manufacturing projects coming into Cheyenne, such as the replacement of the F.E. Warren Air Force Base land-based nuclear missiles, which was announced in 2023.
"That's what I'm really excited about, is moving forward to help our workforce," Ketcham said. "I want to work with the stakeholders in the community to see what they need so that we can provide that to them before it happens. When you have that much money and that many people coming into our community, we want to be ready for that."
Ketcham has brought his experience as a personal banker and the state budget administrator to the table at LCCC, a perspective that has helped him guide some of the more complicated financial aspects of being a trustee.
He has seen the college through the pandemic, he told the WTE, and has learned a lot about the benefits of a collaborative board. Even though all of the current board members don't agree on everything, they are able to work together and move the college forward, and that experience is something that Ketcham brings to the table.
"I don't think, when you have an un-cohesive board, that things get done correctly," Ketcham said. "What we've done is work together to build what we have now, and I think it's a great thing going forward."
Ketcham is one of six candidates running for four openings on the LCCC Board of Trustees. Being a trustee is a nonpartisan, unpaid position with a term of four years. Registered voters in Laramie County can vote for the LCCC Board of Trustees on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
