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Dr. Tammie Strobel said she is excited, honored and humbled by the Tri County Tech Board of Education's decision to select her to take over the role. She said she has had a goal for quite some time to become a leader of a school someday. That goal has been brought into fruition.

Strobel said she feels very grateful for the communities that Tri County Tech serves, and that she feels very blessed to work in Bartlesville. She said she is excited to continue with her service at TCT, providing educational opportunities to those living in Nowata, Osage and Washington counties through a pool of great resources. She said Tri County Tech is wonderfully resourced for the communities they serve, and she's proud of that fact, too.

Strobel will replace Lindel Fields who announced in January 2021 that he would retire later in the year. She will take over the role effective Thursday, July 1st, 2021. You can find the story on Fields announcing his retirement here.

Both Strobel and Fields have worked together since before they were colleagues at Tri County Tech. Strobel said she believes she has a great mentor in Fields and looks forward to following in his footsteps. She said they've been friends and colleagues for decades, and she's happy for Fields in that he's able to retire and further pursue his long-established dreams.

Tri County Tech is in the best shape it has ever been in its history. Strobel said they're in a great place financially and in terms of success measures for their students. She said it's a wonderful thing to be able to take over a situation when they're already at the top of a mountain.

Dr. Strobel said she doesn't visualize many changes coming to Tri County Tech when she takes over as Superintendent and CEO. Strobel said they have a fantastic Senior Leadership Team at Tri County Tech that'll stay intact. She said Kim Smith, Tara Gotwalt, Tonya Foreman, and Kerensa Kester will be at her side and helping her lead so they can continue to make Tri County Tech the best that it can be.

As Superintendent and CEO of Tri County Tech, Dr. Strobel said they'll revisit and look at their Vision 2025 Plan in order to establish new goals for their instructional programs. Strobel said they want to continue to be innovative. She said they want to keep helping students and stakeholders in our communities secure great jobs.

A lot of this mission has to do with keeping Tri County Tech's pulse on things that are changing. Dr. Strobel said they'll continue to keep their pulse on what's changing around them while developing programs where people can have great living wage jobs that will contribute to the economy.

The sky is the limit, as Dr. Strobel says they've already accomplished some of the goals they set out to accomplish through Vision 2025. One of the goals that has been reached is that Tri County Tech has been recognized as a Top Place to Work in the country. Strobel said TCT has also been able to place their students and fill their classes to at least 90-percent capacity. She said they've also strived to help their students enroll and leave TCT without student debt.

Now Tri County Tech is looking to achieve higher goals and benchmarks in comparison. Strobel said they're a pretty competitive group. She said they're always looking to be able to add more value to the communities they serve.

Tri County Tech also plans to apply for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award in 2023. Strobel said they're not eligible now since they won the prestigious award in 2018. She said they have to wait five years since winning the award to apply again. She said they have every expectation of once again being honored as a recipient of the Baldridge Award when they're able to apply.

Strobel is a Senior Baldridge Examiner that believes in the framework and has trained other organizations on how to use the framework through the Oklahoma Quality Foundation. She said the Performance Excellence Framework that Baldridge has developed works. She said the plan takes the business of running a business into six simple categories.

Those six categories include leadership, strategy, workforce (what's done for employees), what you measure and how you measure it, operations, and results. Strobel said Tri County Tech is operated as a business under this framework. She said they'll always follow this model in order to be successful.