The National College of Business and Technology is in the very early stages of the planning process for its new brick-and-mortar campus in Memphis.

Gwen Taylor teaches spreadsheet applications to students at the National College of Business and Technology, a trade and technical school that has campuses in Memphis and Bartlett.
(Photo: Lance Murphey)

The private college – which is based in Roanoke, Va., and has locations in six states – plans to relocate its Lamar campus. The existing facility is nearing capacity (approximately 400 students), so NBCT will move to a larger, soon-to-be-constructed two-story building at 2576 Thousand Oaks Cove, just off Interstate 240 in East Memphis.

Memphis is one of several growing markets for the college, which has had a presence in the Mid-South since March 2006 when the Lamar campus opened.

“The Mid South’s economy is heavily influenced by key sectors – logistics and biotech – that drive economic growth in many other fields as well,” said Cyndee Perdue Moore, National College’s vice president of operations for Tennessee and Indiana. “With National College having built a solid foundation in Middle Tennessee since the early 1990s, Memphis was also a logical progression for the college.”

Preliminary work is under way at the new site, where National College and Corolla Management Corp. filed for a $5.2 million building permit last November. Details like the anticipated opening date and cost of construction will not be available for a few months.

“As the Lamar campus nears its capacity, we are looking to relocate it a couple of miles east,” said Chuck Steenburgh, National College director of communications. “The new location will allow for greater ease of access, additional parking, and other amenities, as well as growth in the student population.”

Corolla Management Corp. bought the property from Bank of Bartlett in September for $925,000. The builder and architect on the project is David Noell, president of construction at Cincinnati-based K4 Architecture LLC, and the engineer is Pickering Firm Inc.

NCBT also has a second local campus that opened in March 2007 at 5760 Stage Road in Bartlett, where enrollment is roughly 300 students each year. The college employs 60 faculty and staff at its two Memphis campuses, roughly a third of whom are permanent, full-time employees with the rest being part-time instructors.

Overall, National College serves more than 10,000 students annually at 30 campuses in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana and West Virginia. The college, which boasts smaller classes with an average of 15 students per instructor, offers more than 40 academic programs including degrees in a number of fields in business administration (management and accounting), health care and computers.

“Most of our students are in an associate’s degree program consisting of 96 credit hours,” said Noel Denney, campus director at NCBT’s Lamar location. “We also offer diploma programs consisting of 32 to 48 credit hours in accounting, management, and for medical office assistants and specialists.”

The strongest demand is for medical programs for training of pharmacy technicians, medical assistants, and surgical technologists. NCBT is also seeing strong enrollment in its health information technology (HIT) programs.

“With the growth of electronic health records, the fact that our two Memphis-area campuses were among the first of any college in Tennessee to offer an accredited HIT associate’s degree has led to a large influx of new students,” Steenburgh said.

Also unique to the Memphis campus is an associate degree in logistics and supply chain management, a program developed specifically for the needs of this market, which boasts the highest percentage of logistics workers than any other metropolitan area in the country, according to the Greater Memphis Chamber.

NCBT prides itself on maintaining strong relationships within the local business community. Both local campuses have advisory boards made up of local business professionals, as well as former graduates, faculty and staff.

The Memphis campuses periodically sponsor networking events that give students the opportunity to meet with area business leaders like Charles Sims of The Sims Financial Group and learn from his 40 years of experience in the financial services industry.

“I’m very impressed with what the college is doing to educate its students and get them on a career path, and I like that the college is very active within the community,” said Sims, who has been on the Lamar campus advisory board for one year. “I actually just hired a local National College graduate as my operations manager.”

Sims and other members of the advisory board meet twice each year, and NCBT holds workshops throughout the year that feature a variety of local guest speakers.

National College currently has no other plans to relocate any of its other Tennessee campuses.