Area residents are invited to learn more about the college’s current strategic planning process in an open forum discussion scheduled Wednesday, February 13, at 2 p.m. in the meeting room at Ane Mae’s Coffee & Sandwich Shop, 325 N. Penn.
The forum will be led by Mike Thompson, who serves in the volunteer position of strategic planning coordinator. The meeting will provide further explanation about the planning process and its objectives, as well as an opportunity for questions and answers.
An Independence native and ICC alumnus, Thompson recently returned to the area after a 44-year career in the financial services industry. He joined Merrill Lynch in 1973 and worked for that organization until 2007. He then moved to Union Bank of Switzerland in Kansas City and finished his career at Wells Fargo Advisors, retiring in 2017.
Thompson has extensive civic and corporate board service experience and remains active on the Board of Advisors of the University of Kansas School of Business.
In his role as ICC Strategic Planning Coordinator, he works collaboratively with several committees, including the Strategic Planning Process Committee, which is responsible for outlining the steps of the process, and the Strategic Planning Gap Analysis Committee, which will prioritize issues for deeper study by the five established work groups: Academic Excellence, Community Engagement, Economic Development, Cultural and Diversity Excellence, and ICC 2025, which focuses on financial sustainability, funding and development of distinctive programs.
The six-month planning process began in October and is designed to create a five-year strategic plan for ICC. The college’s current strategic plan will end this year.