A Big Boost for Germanna

Stafford expansion proceeds thanks to major donations

BY TRACY BELL

It was never unusual to see James Clapper, former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, chatting with students at Germanna Community College, where he’s an occasional lecturer.

Now, a cybersecurity center at Germanna will be named for him.

The James R. Clapper Center for Cybersecurity will be in the college’s Barbara J. Fried Center, which is moving from its current site on Old Potomac Church Road to two buildings the college has purchased on

Center Street in Stafford.

Clapper said he is “of course, honored, touched and humbled by this wonderful distinction — very proud.”

A $750,000 donation to Germanna, presented last fall from the Stafford Economic Development Authority, is expected to go a long way toward expanding the college’s presence in Stafford, as well as help to boost its growing IT, cybersecurity and nursing programs.

“It is absolutely crucial to attract IT-smart young people to the field of cybersecurity,” Clapper said. “The nation has literally millions of positions requiring cybersecurity skills and expertise. And, it is especially vital to fill those critical positions in the government, where the nation’s safety and security are at stake. It’s hard to overstate the importance.”

Germanna welcomed 3,191 Staffordbased students this school year, with projected growth to 3,693 Stafford students by 2025. That’s not counting its non-credit workforce training students.

The donation will help Germanna establish a permanent site at the two new buildings along Center Street, including a $15 million Center of Educational Excellence at 25 Center St., with classes planned to begin by the fall of 2024. That building will also house the Kevin L. Dillard Health Sciences Center, devoted to nursing and allied health technology programs. The other new building, at 10 Center St., will, along with cybersecurity, house IT and dualenrollment programs.

The Stafford location will technically be a site in 2024, though campus status will come later, said Mike Zitz, Germanna’s special assistant to the president for media and communications.

The EDA’s donation is part of a total of $4.5 million in major donor gifts that made Germanna’s expansion possible, said Jack Rowley, president of the GCC Educational Foundation’s real estate foundation, touting the success of public-private partnerships. In addition, Virginia’s U.S. senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, visited the Stafford campus in late January to present a $900,000 check from the federal government to support the cybersecurity program.

Rowley said that Stafford has the largest population in Germanna’s service area. The Fried Center and Dillard Health Sciences Center, together at more than 74,000 square feet, will meet Germanna’s space requirements in Stafford for years to come, he said. Modifications to the two buildings, designed by Fredericksburg architect John Burger, are expected to begin in March.

In 2018, Germanna leased an 18,921-square-foot building in Stafford that more than tripled the space available from the 5,000-square-foot Germanna center opened at Aquia in 2009.

Today’s new facilities will more than triple the current space – and Germanna will continue to offer classes at the Fried Center near Stafford Hospital until the Center Street site opens.

“With Germanna’s focus on allied health service and cybersecurity, students will be prepared for skills-gap careers in health care and government,” Rowley noted, referring to the mismatch often seen between actual and necessary candidate skills within certain careers.

Germanna President Janet Gullickson said that nearly 80% of Germanna graduates remain in the area.

The college’s cybersecurity interns are in great demand, especially from Stafford-based defense contractors, and the FBI and Marine Corps Base Quantico are also nearby.

As for nursing, Gullickson said Germanna has committed to doubling its nursing graduates over the next three years – from 200 a year to 400 – due to a critical shortage of health professionals.

While nurse shortages in Germanna’s service area are generally the same as those nationwide, the local shortages may increase when a 450,000-square-foot Veterans Administration clinic opens in late 2023 or early 2024.

A new community wellness center will be part of the college’s transformation, Gullickson said, with diabetes checks, blood pressure tests and dental exams planned.

Patti Lisk, Germanna’s dean of nursing, said the expansion will be a shot in the arm to the nursing and health sciences program because applicants from Stafford, who make up the bulk of the 1,000 applying each year, won’t have to travel to the Locust Grove campus for classes, she said.

Eileen Dohmann, senior vice president and chief nursing officer for Mary Washington Healthcare, said both Stafford Hospital and Mary Washington Hospital will benefit from the new site and more nursing and health-sciences graduates.

Get To Know James Clapper

KNOWN FOR: Serving as director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama

AGE: 81

RESIDES:

In Fairfax since he retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1995 as a lieutenant general

AUTHOR: His latest book (2018) - “Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence”

LECTURES:

At various colleges and universities including Notre Dame; has a formal connection to Harvard, where he is entering emeritus status; locally at Germanna Community College.

STUDENTS USUALLY WANT TO KNOW:

The “Inside Baseball” on what it’s like to brief a president, what “really” happened during history-making world events like the Osama bin Laden takedown; why he became an intelligence officer and who influenced his career; the scoop on his visit to North Korea nearly a decade ago; and details about his books.

Stafford EDA Chairman Joel Griffin said that the foresight necessary for Germanna’s expansion was in place years ago and is now coming to fruition. He specifically credited Rowley along with Don Newlin, who has served the EDA for more than 40 years. The nursing and cybersecurity programs at Germanna are first class, not just in the region but in the nation, Griffin said.

“These are jobs that support our national security,” he said of cybersecurity. “And I think COVID has brought to the forefront nurses and what they do every single day.”

Bruce Davis, executive director of Germanna’s Educational Foundation and special assistant to Germanna’s president for institutional advancement, said that the effect of the expansion is far-reaching.

“This is the single biggest transaction and project ever undertaken by the foundation,” Davis said, “and will benefit the college and thousands of students over many years.” grammar/spelling bad?

Tracy Bell is a freelancer who lives in Stafford County.

For more information on Germanna Community College, visit germanna.edu.

ADVICE ON CAREERS IN CYBERSECURITY:

“Acquire as many technical certifications as possible – that’s a real plus for an institution that offers an associate degree, like Germanna; computer skills, software experience; an understanding of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and how to address them.” A college degree is always good to have for professional advancement, he added, but the certifications are huge.

COMPUTER SECURITY TIPS:

Recognize phishing attacks. Is the wording inappropriate, or the

Be careful about opening attachments that are in suspicious emails. “People still fall for fairly simple techniques that hackers use – even after all these years.”

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE:

Served for 6½ years and wonders if he stayed too long; first declined the role due to his age; “But, when the President says, ‘I need you to do this job,’ it is pretty hard to turn it down.”

GOOD TIMES AND BAD:

A true honor, but highpressure, stressful and tiring, with some bad days –“most notably when I drew the short straw to inform [Obama] about Edward Snowden. That was not a good day for me.”