Erik Coyne, Ivy Tech Bloomington chancellor, on Crane partnership, nursing expansion goal

Beyond an adjunct position at Indiana University this past year, Erik Coyne's teaching experience is limited. He's spent a lot of his adult life overseas, not in a classroom. But this May, he became the new chancellor of Ivy Tech Community College's Bloomington campus.

Coyne said it's not as big of a jump as one might initially think. The Monroe County native and retired colonel of the United States Air Force returned to his hometown about three years ago, looking for a new way to channel his drive for community involvement.

Less than 100 days into his new role, Coyne spoke with The Herald-Times, sharing the advantages of his background and his vision of Ivy Tech Bloomington's future.

Answers have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

How does your military leadership experience translate to college stewardship?

Editor's note: Coyne holds an assortment of degrees — a bachelor's in political science from the United States Air Force Academy, a master's in National Security Strategy from National War College, a master's in public administration from Bowie State University, a master's in military operational arts and sciences from the Air Command and Staff College, Air University, and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore School of Law. He served 24 years in the military, retiring as a colonel of the United States Air Force.

Coyne: On the surface, I think my background might not seem like the obvious fit. I think that if you did drill down a little bit deeper, from an organizational perspective, our organizations are very similar, in that we have bases all around and we have campuses all around, we had a headquarters and we have a (Ivy Tech) headquarters in Indianapolis. The campus is very much organized like a base would be organized from a management perspective.

I think military leadership is not different than a lot of other leadership. I think business, academic (and) military leadership are all about people and you have a mission focus. It doesn't matter what your organization is; you have a mission focus. We used to launch airplanes, and now we're launching careers. As you look at it through that lens, it's just a matter of: It's the people business. Leadership is a people business. Fundamentally, it's about engaging your folks, empowering them, giving them the tools they need to do their jobs, and giving them strategic vision and guidance and then letting them go do what they do. I don't think that's really any different in any organization.

There might be a perception sometimes that in the military, you are able to just use your rank and kind of force people to do things. But I was leading large legal offices. We had attorneys and paralegals who are highly educated, and you just can't show up one day and yell at people and get them to do what you want. It's about building consensus. It's about teamwork. It's about building a shared vision and having everybody buying into that. I think that that really, really is consistent across industry, business, academia, military and government. There's a lot more similarities that I see from my perspective than might be obvious for some of it from the outside.

As someone with a military background, what's Ivy Tech's relationship with Crane? Has that been expanded?

Coyne: We actually just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Crane about a month and a half ago, which really opens up our relationship and allows us to collaborate a little bit more freely with them on everything like logistics — we actually just completed the first cohort of DOD logistics training program, and we are now into the next cohort. So we can talk to them about, "Hey, what kind of emergency management training do you need on base? You know, what other training do you need on base?" We can have a lot more of a kind of open relationship where we can provide some of the training that they need.

We had a relationship with (Crane) for a long, long time. But coming from my old world, where I'm putting my old hat on as an Air Force attorney, the memorandum of understanding just allows us to really formalize it. It makes a few things a little bit easier for them on their part to work with us.

Where do you see that growth in terms of workforce opportunities? What are those fields you're seeing that are wanted and needed in the state economy?

Coyne: I think Biotech is a big one. We obviously have a number of programs focused in that area. I think what we're really starting to see now is the semiconductor, with the Chips Act that was recently passed — Indiana is really at the forefront of that. Sen. (Todd) Young has been instrumental in really kind of positioning Indiana to gain on the microprocessor side of things. When we look down at WestGate, there's a project occurring for a semiconductor plant to be put in down there, and we are going to be their trainer of choice. We're going to be training that workforce, they're going to hire up to 1,000 people over the next three to five years. They have to get training and we're going to be providing that training.

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We recently had Samsung move to Kokomo, and one of the reasons Samsung cited moving to Kokomo was the support they're getting from Ivy Tech. When you look at that, and you think about the economic impact that plan is going to have in the Kokomo region and you can think about how important Ivy Tech is to that, that's exactly what's happening down at WestGate. When you look at that the foundry they're building now and the phases that are happening, we already had a big part of attracting that business to this region and we're going to be a big part in helping the economy here grow.

Beyond Ivy Tech's strategic plan, what are your personal priorities when it comes to leading this campus?

Coyne: Personally, I want us to provide our students with the tools, resources and support that they need to be successful not just here at Ivy Tech, but also in whatever career they launch into — that could be transferring to another institution, that could be working in a local business. You know, 93% of our students will stay in Indiana.

The second thing that is really interesting to me is Ivy Tech as an economic driver for this community and really looking at the opportunity for us to partner with industry, other regional educational institutions, other partners in the area to build up and provide opportunities — whether it's workforce training or workforce development.

We don't really talk about it this way, but we're probably the largest workforce training consulting firm in the region. We'll go into businesses and ask them what they need for training and then we'll figure out a way to get their employees trained and get them certificates.

You look down at what's happening at WestGate and down at Crane. There's a lot of really exciting things happening down there. I want Ivy Tech to be at the table when we're having these meetings with industry about how this region can support them.

What are you looking to accomplish right now, in the short term?

Coyne: I have a sort of 100-day plan that I came in on: a third of it is to listen and learn, a third of analysis and a third of planning. We have strategy sessions that will start the end of June. We're really looking forward to nesting into the Ivy Tech strategy, (which is) the overall strategy, and then figuring out what the Bloomington strategy is to try and move forward.

One of the things we're looking at this summer is really doing a deep analysis of what our students are looking for and what industry is looking for. What is the market demanding? What types of graduates? What are they paying? Where are those different opportunities? I think it's important for our students to know those things as well as they enter into different programs. We're going through that analysis and then at the end of the summer, we're really taking a look at what are we offering today and where can we partner with others to offer some other programs that might make sense.

How about long-term goals for the future?

Coyne: If in five years we're doing this interview again, I would hope my real signature accomplishment would be nursing expansion and health care program expansion.

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There's obvious partnerships with IU Health and other healthcare entities in the region. I would like to see us either having completed an expansion so that we can accommodate more nurses. We're in the analysis phase right now — like, what is the market demand gonna be in 5 to 10 years? — so we can prepare for that. But we need more nurses. We need more healthcare workers. I feel like we are positioned here, especially in this region with the growth we anticipate down at WestGate (and) with IU Health's new facility drawing people in, there's a big need and a big demand here.

If we're talking again, in five years, we should be talking about the new facility, whether it's a retrofit of one of these wings or whether it's a new building. Whatever it is, I think that that, really, to me, is going to be a focus. It's really going to be a project that is going to be really important to this community.

Reach Rachel Smith at rksmith@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Ivy Tech Bloomington has a new chancellor with military expertise