Trades transforming futures: Miller-Motte College President champions growth, trades education and community impact

By Stephanie Meador, posted Aug 7, 2025 on BizFayetteville.com

Dr. Janell Geddis assumed the role of president for Miller-Motte College’s Fayetteville campus in February of 2024. Dr. Geddis joined MMC with 15 years of experience in higher education, with most of her roles serving community colleges, technical colleges and two-year colleges.

“Not everybody is going to go to the traditional four-year college, and so usually you’ll hear that you’ve got to go to the four-year college or the military, or just find a job somehow and start working. I think what the two-year colleges or the technical career training schools do is give people an opportunity to have a lucrative career in a short amount of time,” shared Dr. Geddis.

Miller-Motte College, part of the larger Ancora Education network, has seen significant growth in recent years. MMC Fayetteville currently has 309 students enrolled and anticipates numbers to continue to climb.

The Fayetteville campus, once known primarily for barbering and massage therapy, now boasts robust programs in welding, HVAC, electrical, medical clinical assistant, CDL and plumbing. The addition of the new plumbing program and the expansion of the welding shop from six booths to 20 are just the latest steps in a broader strategy to meet the needs of both students and local industries.

A key strength of the college is its dedicated faculty.

One of the programs MMC offers is welding. Students learn common welding joints like corner joints, tee joints and edge joints. Students also learn the four main positions for welding which are flat, horizontal, overhead and vertical. The student pictured above is working on a tee plate in the overhead position. Photo by GFBJ.

“Our instructors are all journeyman level instructors in those different trades. No one has less than five years of experience, and so everyone is getting that hands-on experience from very skilled, experienced professionals. They’ve worked along with some of these companies that we [partner with], or owned their own businesses themselves, and they have so much to pour into the students. And I love that that passion is seen inside the classroom. I mean, the passion is seen when they’re out there welding and the instructors are excited to talk about their programs and what it is that they’re doing – that carries on to our students, and when that carries on to the students, it carries on to the community, because the students are going to be the ones that tell everybody what they experience,” stated Dr. Geddis.

As industries change and new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence reshape the workforce, the trades promise a level of job security that many fields cannot guarantee at this time.

“People are always going to need HVAC. You’re always going to need plumbers. You’re always going to need those types of fields. And so what it does is it positions a person to have a successful, lucrative career, without that four-year college commitment. And so now we have a 10-month program here, for example, where a person can leave making decent salaries and have long-term careers, where there’s opportunity for growth in so many different ways,” added Dr. Geddis.

The college’s commitment to job placement is evident in its partnerships with local employers such as Carolina Comfort Air, Cape Fear Valley Health, Goodyear, Ivey Mechanical, Ryder and more.

“We’re very serious with career services. Our accreditation requires that we have at least 70% of all of our graduates placed inside of their field by the time they are done here within a year,” shared Dr. Geddis.

Some students even secure jobs before their schooling is complete.

While the 10-month program provides a gateway to many careers, MMC also offers further educational options for students who wish to continue their studies. The campus is actively promoting its construction trades management associate’s degree, which allows graduates of the trades programs to continue their education and move into supervisory and project management roles. MMC online also offers expanded programming.

“A lot of times, like we talked about before, you may not go to a four-year college, but when you see that ‘Man, I did this in 10 months, and I completed that,’ [then you think] ‘hey, let's add on a few more months,’ and now you’ve turned that career training into an associ ate’s degree. And that speaks a lot, and sometimes now that becomes a motivator. So then that person would be able to do a degree completion, from an associate’s degree to then a bachelor’s degree. And what’s nice is we have that all here internally, Mill er-Motte College online can go all the way up to a bachelor’s degree at this time. So it’s a nice matriculation for the student that started off with that 10-month program, and then we see some of them that just walked across our stage at graduation the other week that had bachelor’s degrees,” shared Dr. Geddis.

Looking ahead, Dr. Geddis is focused on deepening the college’s impact in Fayetteville.

“We’re always looking for partnerships with people in the community, and it's not just for us to be able to gain new students. I want to impact Fayetteville. That is the goal. Miller-Motte wants to impact Fayetteville. How do we make our community better? How do we service the community? …I really want to impact the community,” shared Dr. Geddis.

As Miller-Motte College continues to grow, Dr. Geddis’s message is clear: technical education is not just an alternative, it’s a powerful engine for personal and community transformation.

MMC’s Fayetteville campus is located at 3725 Ramsey Street. For more information check out their website: www.miller-motte.edu/campuses/north carolina/fayetteville-career-training.

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