Ola Smith, a member of the Board of Directors of Okefenokee Technical College, was recently elected as Treasurer of the Technical College Directors' Association of Georgia. Smith, CEO of the McKinney Community Health Center in Waycross, has served on the OTC Board of Directors since August, 1999.

“It is an honor for me to serve as Treasurer of the Technical College Directors' Association (TCDA). Technical education is vital to the development of a trained workforce for Georgia, and a trained workforce is vital to the creation of new jobs," says Smith. She continues, "TCDA members serve as advocates for technical education throughout the state and specifically for our local colleges, which in my case is Okefenokee Tech. Looking at Georgia's technical college system in general which is nationally recognized, and then specifically at Okefenokee Technical College's growth and programs, you realize that one of technical colleges' strengths is their ability to rapidly create and offer programs to address training needs in the communities they serve. You can see evidence of this locally by the new allied health and other technical education programs being offered at Okefenokee Tech.”

The mission of the Technical College Directors' Association of Georgia (TCDA) is to build the capability of the technical colleges' boards of directors to effectively increase the real and perceived value of technical and adult education in Georgia.

Members of the local Board of Directors of the 34 state-managed technical colleges in Georgia are automatically members of TCDA, the Technical College Directors' Association. The association was formed in 1990 as an educational non-profit organization.