Two years after breaking ground in 100-degree heat, Columbia State Community College celebrated the grand opening of its Southern Regional Technology Center on Friday, Aug. 21, with a ribbon-cutting, an open house, and a 300-drone light show over the Hampshire Pike campus that this newspaper's editor can personally vouch for. We went out to watch it, and it was amazing, the kind of thing that made a workforce-development ribbon-cutting feel like an actual community event.

The $50.2 million facility is a joint project of Columbia State, Tennessee College of Applied Technology Hohenwald, and TCAT Pulaski, built under the Tennessee Board of Regents system to give Maury County something it did not have before: a single, purpose-built home for health-science and skilled-trades training. Programs moving into the roughly 88,000-square-foot building include medical laboratory technology, nursing, radiologic technology, respiratory care, medical informatics, engineering systems technology, veterinary technology, automotive technology (including hybrid and electric vehicle work), HVAC, and welding.

The project came together through a mix of state, local, and private support. The bulk of the funding came through the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's capital outlay process, backed by the governor's budget and the General Assembly. The City of Columbia committed $25,000 a year for four years, and Maury Regional Medical Center, local banks, credit unions, businesses, and private citizens gave more than $1 million through the Columbia State Foundation to help get it built.

Columbia State President Dr. Janet F. Smith framed the center as proof of what a community can do when it pulls together. "It reflects what can happen when communities come together" to create "unprecedented opportunities," she said. She traced the project's origins back to a much smaller idea. "It started with a capital project for a health sciences building," she said. "When Northfield closed, we saw an opportunity to redesign."

Tennessee Board of Regents Chancellor Dr. Flora W. Tydings did not mince words about the partnership behind the building. "You will not find three better partners working together for the benefit of the community and students," she said, adding a line that captured the mood of the day: "That's cash. That's how Tennessee rolls."

TCAT Pulaski President Mike Whitehead called the opening "a significant milestone in the journey of education and workforce development in this region," while TCAT Hohenwald President Dr. Kelli Kea-Carroll said the building represents "the new realization of dreams come true for the technical programs" her school offers.

The opening celebration doubled as a nod to two other milestones happening at the same time: Columbia State's 60th anniversary and America's 250th birthday, part of why the evening built toward something bigger than a typical building dedication. The 6:30 p.m. ribbon-cutting rolled into an open house with live music and facility tours, before the drones took over the sky at 8:30.

For students across Maury and the surrounding counties, the real payoff will not be the light show, it will be walking out of these programs with credentials that lead straight into local jobs. That was the point Dr. Smith kept coming back to: a building designed so that students "walk out at completion and walk into an industry."

Sources: Columbia State Community College. Main Street Media of Tennessee. Williamson Source. Maury County Source.