Kim BrattainFounder/ CEO, Kim Brattain Media · Award-winning Corporate and Documentary Film Producer

Central Piedmont Community College Tony Zeiss | Kim Brattain Media

27 Jan 2015 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:53

The video features Dr. Tony Zeiss, president of Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC), outlining the college’s strategic vision. Speaker A highlights CPCC’s advanced manufacturing capabilities, including 3D printing and the unique offering of German certification programs, emphasizing partnerships with international industry leaders to position the region globally. Speaker B praises Zeiss’s ability to sell a vision of affordable, job‑focused education, noting his civic initiatives such as commissioning bronze statues of local historical figures and preserving greenway space along the Carolina Thread Trail. Speaker C identifies as a Daisy Tech Associate in Arts, underscoring the student perspective. Zeiss’s broader economic development agenda includes collaboration with regional developers to attract manufacturing, transportation, and logistics jobs, exemplified by a new intermodal facility at the airport and workforce retraining programs aimed at lifting residents out of poverty. The narrative also celebrates Zeiss’s 22‑year tenure, during which CPCC expanded from a single campus to six, becoming a national leader in workforce development.

Chapters

I have in my hand a little plastic crescent wrench. We have some of the highest technology you'll find in any college or university, and this is with 3D printing. We're the only college in America that can teach German certifications. Wherever there's great technology, particularly in manufacturing, we're making friends with those folks, whether it's the Swiss or the Germans or whoever it happens to be. So this region is going global. And, uh, it's time for us to take our place on the international stage in a much bigger way.
How are ya? Hello, ladies. You have a good semester. Quick with a smile and handshake, Dr. Tony Zeiss has no trouble selling his vision for Central Piedmont's relevant, job-focused, affordable education.
Daisy Tech Associate in Arts.
Zeiss has another vision too, to enhance quality of life and civic pride. He led an effort to commission bronze statues of Mecklenburg County historical figures while also preserving greenway space along the Carolina Thread Trail. Both will continue to touch lives here long after we are all gone. But Zeiss's most remarkable achievement is CPCC's growth under 22 years of leadership, from one campus to 6. Mecklenburg County's community college has evolved into a national leader in workforce development.
We have a vision, and that vision involves not just Charlotte, but 16, 18, maybe even 20 different counties in North and South Carolina. You know, the jobs that you need to attract, and so we work with economic developers to get that vision. Those are manufacturing, Transportation and logistics. We have the new intermodal facility out at the airport. And so retraining the workforce so they can stay productive and be competitive and grow with more jobs is very important, just as important as training these new folks who are trying to get better jobs or their first job. We've found that people don't want to stay illiterate. They don't want to stay poor. They want a hand up. They really don't want so much a handout. They want help to go further.
Helping us all go further. Congratulations, Dr. Tony Zeiss, 2015 Counselors of Real Estate Creative Thinker.