There were a couple of kinks in Richmond Community College’s first teleconference with the Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) Task Force Tuesday. One of the cameras didn’t work and Powerpoint presentations seemingly disappeared and reappeared.

However, to at least one RCC official it was a forward-looking conference that allowed RCC to come together with the county school districts of Richmond, Montgomery and Scotland counties and meet with BRAC officials without having to spend money to pay for travel to the base or another location.

In the future, it will allow the college to save even more money, once it is introduced into the classroom, according to RCC Vice President of Continuing Education Richard Garrett.

“The video-conferencing technology has been around for a while,” Garrett said. “But, what this ITV technology means for us, is we’re able to do collaborations with other colleges to provide expanded course offerings.”

Garrett explained rural community colleges in many cases have smaller pools of instructors than more well-funded institutions, so it is a real advantage to be able to share instructors with other campuses.

“For instance, there may be someone who’s certified in Montgomery County,” he said. “This technology will allow us to still offer the course with that instructor teaching our classes, and it’s in real time.”

He pointed out a second advantage, as well.

“We’re able to save money on traveling,” he said. “Instead of traveling to Cumberland County, we can stay home and save the taxpayer some money.”

This has become more important since the state budget situation has led to a freeze on traveling in the community college system.

Still, Garrett sees this as an opportunity to bring this technology into the rural Pee Dee Region.

“It’s exciting, and we as the community colleges need to be out front with this technology,” he said. “That way, we can bring it into the community for them to use.”

The agenda of the conference revolved around efforts to boost entrepreneurs in a five-area county bordering Richmond and including Scotland, discussion of what jobs will be the most plentiful in the coming months and years in the region and merging two separate committees which have been meeting as part of the BRAC Task Force.

“I learned more information about what innovative things doing entities are doing in other counties and across the state,” Richmond County Schools Career Technical Education Coordinator Martha Webb said. “I didn’t realize we had the entrepeneurship group coordinating the whole Southeast.”

She has been participating in BRAC meetings on behalf of RCS for some time, and said the video conference could make it possible for more people to attend.

“I like the video conferencing if they can get the kinks worked out,” she said. “It will be a good thing.”