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Jack Mitchell, whose company provides chemicals to the leather tanning industry in China, enrolled in a Mandarin language course at Pease. Photo courtesy of Jackie Ricciardi Holding

"The diversity and depth of educational opportunities at Pease is “a valuable resource for our engineers and technical workers, but also our administrative staff. Unfortunately, we haven’t taken as much advantage of it as we’d like." Jack Mitchell, Chemtan

To better appreciate the increased sophistication of the education infrastructure at the Pease International Tradeport for the region’s business community, one could start with an Exeter-based company determined to increase its exports to China. Chemtan has exported its specialty chemicals for the leather tanning industry to China for more than 15 years.

Chemtan President Jack Mitchell said that his company’s stake in serving the world’s fastest growing industrial economy has been “significant” and likely will grow even more in the coming decade.

“We thought it might be an opportunity,” Mitchell said recently about Chemtan’s decision to better serve its Chinese customers. That “opportunity” led Mitchell and four other Chemtan managers to enroll in a Mandarin Chinese class at the Seacoast Center of Southern New Hampshire University. “It’s already helped me,” Mitchell said after the first month of classes.

In addition to Chemtan, 18 students are involved in the language class. And all of them, said Anka Jacobs of the Pease-based International Trade Resource Center, are either small-business owners, executives, or export experts like Jacobs.

Or consider the major biomanufacturing conference BIOMAN 2006, which was held recently at the Pease location for N.H. Community Technical College. BIOMAN 2006 reflected more than a decade of biomanufacturing development at NHCTC, which, through an industry focused curriculum for its students, has served international businesses such as Lonza Biologics and Bentley Pharmaceuticals in Exeter.

And for business leaders seeking to increase their own intellectual capital, Franklin Pierce College, in conjunction with Plymouth State University, will begin offering a PhD program in transformational leadership.

There are six major satellite campuses at Pease International Tradeport – Daniel Webster College, Granite State College and the University of New Hampshire join the three campuses mentioned above – and they have evolved into vital players in their own right.

Jane Torrey is the director of the Seacoast Center of Southern New Hampshire University. Photo by Michael McCord

"This is an exciting place to be, a dynamic business center. You have a couple of major anchor businesses like Lonza and Liberty Mutual and then we have the federal government moving its offices here.” Jane Torrey, director of Southern New Hampshire University’s Seacoast Center

Location, location, location

Location is one of the more obvious reasons for the growth of the educational sector at Pease. “Extension campuses are designed for adult learners, and by design we want to be in a location convenient to adult learners,” said Dermot O’Brien, the campus director for Franklin Pierce College since 2000. “O’Brien said the growth of the educational opportunities at Pease have arisen because of its geographical location at one of the state’s most prominent industrial and office complexes with hundreds of businesses. “This is an exciting place to be, a dynamic business center,” said Jane Torrey, the director of SNHU’s Seacoast Center. “You have a couple of major anchor businesses like Lonza and Liberty Mutual and then we have the federal government moving its offices here.”

Pease also offers space for campuses to construct new buildings – such as ones constructed in the past decade for Franklin Pierce College, SNHU, Daniel Webster College and Granite State College – and for the often overlooked but crucial amenity of parking. These campuses draw thousands of students from across the region into the tradeport. “It’s no accident that a lot of campuses have located here,” Torrey said. “There’s not a lot of open space in the region and parking is an important practical reality for us.”

SNHU opened its 18,000-square-foot, stateof-the-art campus in early 2005 and combined its Portsmouth and Dover campuses. Torrey said the new building was designed not only serve students but also local businesses in need of meeting and training space. “We recently hosted more than 1,000 realtors who had to undergo mandatory technology retraining,” Torrey said. SNHU has also hosted training sessions for companies such as Ecora software and professional meetings for organizations like the Seacoast Human Resource Association. “Pease is a natural location for the entire region,” Torrey said.

Selling education benefits

Providing undergraduate and graduate degree-earning courses, customized curriculum or professional training opportunities for employees of Pease-based businesses has become an important selling point for the tradeport – which houses more than 220 businesses that employ more than 6,400 workers. “It’s a perfect match and it makes us a very vibrant community,” said David Mullen, the deputy director of the Pease Development Authority, about the growth of the educational community at Pease.

“It’s something that we highlight when we talk to businesses who are considering locating here. We’ve been told this is quite the place for industry and education.” What has impressed Mullen, who has been at Pease since 1998, has the been the dynamic connections made between the campuses and the businesses.

“What NHCTC did with Lonza to create a curriculum to train biotech workers was an example of thinking outside the box and developing important partnerships with businesses,” Mullen said.

“It’s very important,” said Jack Mitchell of Chemtan of the diversity and depth of educational opportunities at Pease. “It’s a valuable resource for our engineers and technical workers but also our administrative staff. Unfortunately, we haven’t taken as much advantage of it as we’d like.”

Spreading the word

Torrey said that 450 undergraduate and 125 graduate students are enrolled in degree programs at SNHU’s Seacoast Center. She estimates that as many as 20 percent of those are employees based at Pease.

Dermot O’Brien at Franklin Pierce College said his campus has enrolled 200 undergraduate and 60 graduate students in degree programs and believes that around 20 percent of those are employed at Pease.

Valerie Mahar, the director of the NHTC campus at Pease, said that the success at Pease in building partnerships and drawing a diverse student body for its associate degree programs has grown dramatically since it became the first satellite campus to locate at Pease in 1991.

NHTC is at the beginning of a of three-phase, $8 million project to combine the Stratham and Pease campuses, build a new, 13,000 square-foot library and expands its nursing and science offerings to fit the demands of the regional and state economy. “Pease is an important industrial park and a major hub of job creation, “Mahar said. “We are planning to stay ahead of the curve to meet the demands of a thriving economy.”

The six educational campuses at Pease have also banded together to create a common marketing initiative called the College & University Partnership at Pease. Beginning in the fall of 2004, Mahar said, Pease-based education officials began informal meetings to get to know each other and develop common approaches to getting the word out about the education diversity at the tradeport.

“We found ways we could work together and promote higher education on the Seacoast,” Mahar said. “We all bring something unique to the table with our products and services. The goal was to generate greater visibility for all of us.”

In 2005, the group released a marketing brochure highlighting the “six colleges and universities at one convenient location” that offered “opportunities for all your workforce needs.” Mahar said the organization plans to follow up with the first major survey of its type at Pease – to assess the educational and training needs for the tradeport’s entire business community. “There are many possibilities for training and employee development,” Mahar said. “We want businesses to be aware that we can come up with unique academic programs to serve them.”