The Eyewitness News segment, anchored by Jack Callahan, honors Dr. Tony Zeiss, President of Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC), with the 2012 Jack Callahan Cornerstone/Goodwill Award—the highest accolade from Goodwill Industries. The award recognizes leaders who create workforce development opportunities for people with disabilities and economic disadvantages. The segment highlights the long‑standing partnership between Goodwill and CPCC, emphasizing programs that help low‑wage workers transition into family‑sustaining careers. Dr. Zeiss cites staggering local education gaps—approximately 60,000 residents lack a high school diploma—underscoring the urgency of aligning education with meaningful, gainful employment. Speakers stress that CPCC’s focus is on delivering education that translates into real jobs, and that Goodwill’s mission to serve the “need‑iest of the needy” dovetails with CPCC’s community‑driven initiatives.
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Good evening, I'm Jack Callahan for Eyewitness News.
Jack Callahan, longtime respected and loved Carolina news personality, devoted much of his time when not on the air to bettering the lives of those with disabilities. Stricken with polio as an adult, Jack worked as an advocate for others who faced barriers. Today, the Jack Callahan Cornerstone Award is The Goodwill Award is Goodwill's highest honor, given to a leader who has devoted their time to providing workforce development opportunities and services for people facing disabilities and disadvantages. That leader in 2012 is Dr. Tony Zaitz, President of Central Piedmont Community College.
This is a perfect partnership with Central Piedmont and Goodwill Industries.
We've had the relationship probably the entire 48 years that we've When we think about education, we often think about degrees and study, but I think what Tony thinks about, what Central Piedmont is dedicated to, is being sure that people who get an education get an education that counts.
At the end of the day, what everybody's looking for is a meaningful career and job and gainful employment. Tony really looks at that end goal. Is it going to be a degree that someone can make a living off of?
As president of Central Piedmont Community College, Zeiss oversees 6 campuses located throughout Mecklenburg County, serving more than 70,000 students a year. This construction skills class is just one of the partnerships between CPCC and Goodwill aimed at helping low-wage workers move into family-sustaining careers.
The statistics are kind of staggering in terms of the number of people we have in our community that don't have post-secondary certification. So we've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 folks who don't even have a high school diploma. So all of those folks are at a huge disadvantage when we look at the jobs that are coming down and they're going to be developed over the next 10 years.
Tony understands that an education provides hope and success, and I think that's really what drives him to be out in the community and to be developing new programs and advocating for the work that CPCC does, and he does it very well.
The thing I like about Goodwill is that they focus on the neediest of the needy, and that's where we can really work together to make a true difference in the lives of other people.
Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont is proud to name Dr. Tony Zeiss as the Jack Callahan Cornerstone Award winner for 2012.
