Oregon Coast Community College has welcomed Melissa Batchelor, Ed.D, as the new
associate dean of Academic Affairs. Her previous position was professor and program
coordinator of the Education and Child Development programs at Lewis & Clark
Community College in Illinois. After growing up in the Midwest, Batchelor was looking for an opportunity to live somewhere totally new. She had also been an educator for many years and was ready to step into a new challenge. “I’m excited now about totally shifting and working on the administrative side of a college,” she said.
Batchelor started her educational journey at a community college herself and wants to
share with people the many doors that can be opened by community college. She is a
testament to how far one can go, earning two associate’s degrees from a community
college, a bachelor’s degree in special education, a master’s degree in elementary
education, and finally a doctorate degree in instructional leadership. She has taught at
every level from early childhood to college, excluding high school.
Along with welcoming Batchelor, the college is saying goodbye this summer to Small
Business Management Program Coordinator Misty Lambrecht. In her thirteen years with the Small Business Development Center at OCCC, Lambrecht has provided free one-on-one advising to a wide range of businesses in Lincoln County from pest control to charter fishing boats, and everything in between. After teaching classes such as Twitter, TikTok, Starting a Childcare Business, Profitability, and Google Analytics, she is concluding her time at OCCC to focus on other projects and personal goals.
“In her time with the SBDC, Misty has helped small businesses quickly adapt to take
advantage of emerging technologies, and even to step away from them when they
decline,” said Dave Price, OCCC’s Vice President of Engagement. “She’s always been
an early adopter of these new tools, and that’s been very helpful for Lincoln County’s
small business community. We’ll miss her creativity and dedication to her clients – as
will those clients themselves.
We’re excited that those business owners will still have access to our advising team – including Wendy Ludwig, Jesse Dolin, and myself – while we go through the recruitment process to reshape the Small Business Development Center for its next chapter. We know the Lincoln County business community joins us in thanking and saluting Misty for her work.”
As to her future plans, Lambrecht has taken a part-time position with Reinventing Rural
– an online organization focused on helping rural Pacific Northwest communities
embrace innovation – where she'll be teaching start-up classes and doing business
advising. She will continue part-time advising with Linn-Benton Community College, doing
bookkeeping and payroll, working on her own website design business and, if she can
find the time, pursuing her love of hunting and fishing.
Meanwhile, businesses interested in taking the next Small Business Management class,
a 9-month program starting in October, should contact Dave Price at 541-994-4166.
The program features a series of workshops led by subject-matter experts on critical
business topics ranging from taxes to sales strategy, and from financial reporting to
personnel management. Participants also work one-on-one with SBDC business
advisors monthly throughout the program.
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