As he embarks on his hometown dream job, new Richmond Community College President Dr. Dale McInnis is planning to share his ideas and vision for the college “for years to come.”

McInnis took office Monday, succeeding Dr. Sharon Morrissey, who left to become the North Carolina Community College System Vice President of Administrative Services and Chief Academic Officer. She spent about two years as RCC’s top executive.

McInnis grew up in Ellerbe, and has lived there the majority of his life. That doesn’t mean he is taking for granted that he knows what’s best for Richmond County.

“One of the first things I’m looking at doing in office will be to consult with RCC’s Board of Trustees and employees, and with the community, to hear their input in what direction they want to see the college go in,” McInnis said earlier this month. “I think the expectation is that being an internal candidate, and the fact that I’m from here, I will have a list of things to start doing March 1. I do have some ideas, but I also appreciate the different vantage point that the office of the president offers, and I’m particularly interested in talking with our faculty and students about what they want for the college.”

Among the items he will be looking to reinforce will be the college’s role in economic development and expanding the college’s technical, or STEM, disciplines.

The acronym STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

“There is a need to really focus on our student success, and build on that aspect of our college,” he said. “We need to build on the way we treat each student as an individual, and help each one of them to build a personalized plan that not only meets, but exceeds their expectations for their own success.”

He also pointed to the college’s role in partnerships with the county commission and economic development teams as integral to its service to the community.

“Right now in Richmond and Scotland counties, we’re not only dealing with job loss, but we’re also dealing with underemployment, as well as unemployment,” McInnis said. “We’ve seen our enrollment explode because of this. Many people are being forced to take positions that are below their expectations for themselves and what they were trained to do.

“We need to do more, not only to accommodate our displaced workers, but to work with business and industry to provide opportunities for those who want a better career. I am just as interested in retaining and expanding existing businesses and industry as I am in recruiting new ones.”

In his new role with the college, McInnis will inevitably rely on lessons that he learned, not only throughout his career, but also during his childhood.

It was his rearing in Ellerbe that first influenced him to pursue the career in education.

“My grandmother, my father’s mother, was a school teacher in the Ellerbe school system for about 37 or 38 years,” McInnis recounted. “She and my grandfather were important figures in my childhood, and there was always an expectation from my parents that I would succeed and do well academically.”

Another thing instilled in McInnis during his childhood in Ellerbe was a strong work ethic, cultivated by laboring on the family farm from a young age.

“I learned work hard and don’t quit until the job is done — that work is valuable and is something you learn to enjoy. I think it was a combination of those two things that had an impact on me.”

However, after graduating from Richmond Senior High in 1984, it wasn’t clear cut that McInnis would one day be the executive of a college, or even what he would major in.

During his first years at N.C. State University in Raleigh, McInnis flip-flopped between what he would do with the rest of his life.

“I studied agricultural technology, then I switched to agricultural economics,” he recalled. “I changed majors several times and couldn’t decide what I wanted to do, like many young people. Then I came back home and became a community college success story myself.”

McInnis enrolled at Sandhills Community College in Southern Pines while working for UPS, where he reached a supervisory position, then transferred to the University of North Carolina at Pembroke to study business management.

“Both of those schools really gave me a great opportunity,” McInnis said. “I was a working student, and their flexibility and convenience allowed me to be successful, and get my degree.”

Getting a Bachelor’s degree in business management wasn’t the only thing McInnis took away from Pembroke. He also took away an enhanced drive to achieve in the classroom.

“It was at Pembroke that I met one of my professors, Dr. John Parnell, who encouraged me to look at Campbell University’s graduate school,” he remembers. “He saw some potential in me and wanted to see me go further with my education. Before that, I had never thought about anything but a (Bachelor’s degree).”

His enrollment in grad school would have to mean a career switch for McInnis,. He couldn’t work out a compromise with UPS. He decided to take the leap of faith, and ended up becoming a customer service manager at Lowe’s in Southern Pines.

“I worked for a few years while going to school full-time, in management positions at both companies,” he explained. “When I finished grad school in 1991, we were facing an economy much like we are today. The country faced a war and we had an economic downturn, but it was a good experience for me because Lowe’s taught me about working with the public and understanding the customers’ needs, which are lessons that still apply to my work at the college.”

It was in 1991 that McInnis applied for and received his first job in education as an adjunct business instructor at RCC and Gardner-Webb University.

The position gave him his first taste of being in the front of the classroom.

“That was just a tremendous opportunity,” McInnis said. “It was my first opportunity at teaching. I had always been kind of intrigued by it, but that’s when I really caught the bug. I was just really enthused by working with students and getting their feedback and helping them. That was really a turning point in my life, and it gave me the foothold I needed to get the job in Troy.”

Though Richmond County remained the home of him and his wife Thomasa, who knew each other at Richmond Senior High School, McInnis would take on opportunities outside the county to further his career in the ensuing years.

In 1992, he accepted a position as a full-time business instructor in Montgomery Community College.

“As a matter of fact, I was the business department - it was only a one-person department,” he recalled. “That was really a positive for me, because I got to take on a lot of administrative responsibilities that I might not have otherwise.”

The following year, the school’s Chief Financial Officer stepped down, and McInnis got his first job on the administrative side of a community college. He would eventually become MCC’s Vice President of Administrative Services and CFO, where he would remain for nine years.

“I learned a great deal during my time there,” he recalled. “One of the advantages of being at a small college is it really forces you to learn all the operations. You really dig into every level academically, administratively and operationally, and you get a chance to work with folks on a very close, personal level and that has served me well ever since then.”

He parlayed this experience into the same position at Southern Piedmont Community College, with added duties due to the size of the campus. Then in 2001 Dr. Diane Honeycutt was named RCC President and contacted McInnis about coming home.

Once the 2001-2002 school year was through, McInnis returned to RCC, and started his rise from Vice President of Administrative Services to Executive Vice President to the very top of the school’s organizational chart.

“I think the experiences that helped me the most along the way were having a chance to be in the classroom working directly with students and understanding the role of faculty at a college, and having a chance to work in the private sector and learning the pressures faced by those in the business world and working with customers to determine their needs,” he said. “That’s an insight I’ve tried to retain over the years, because as the college works with its customers, its students and its community, we need to be reminded that these folks are in business and that we need to help support economic development and help businesses thrive and grow.”

He hopes these insights will help him to capitalize on the strengths of the community college concept.

“The strength of the community college lies in our ability to adjust to the needs of the community it serves, and in its accessibility to everyone in the community,” McInnis explained. “During my tenure, I hope to reinforce and strengthen those two defining elements, because I see the community college as the common denominator, the hub of the community, the point of contact that brings in folks from all walks of life. There’s a responsibility and an opportunity there that I really appreciate.

“I’m very excited to accept that responsibility, and I look forward to being at RCC for years to come.”

Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.