“It’s about the students,” said Sommers, 54, who has been Butler Tech’s chief executive officer since 2002. “If I’ve been successful, what we do today and what we accomplish today will be inadequate. I just hope that someday, they’ll look back and say, ‘Wow! I can’t believe they really did it. Because we found a better way to do it (educate students).”
Sommers, a 32-year veteran of education, will be leaving Butler Tech effective Feb. 16. He joins a Michigan charter school management company March 1.
Sommers propelled Butler Tech from the 41st-ranked (out of 49) career center in the state in overall student performance to No. 1. He also helped expand Butler Tech from its humble beginning in 1975 as a central campus building that offered relatively few courses into an education network that operates 190 satellite programs in 10 school districts and serves more than 25,000 high school and adult students.
Joe Hinson, president and CEO of the West Chester-Liberty Chamber Alliance, credited Sommers with bringing business and education together in a way that hadn’t been seen before in this region. Sommers understands the importance that education plays in work force development, Hinson said.
“The future of our economy is getting more people aligned with jobs and getting skills developed, and getting them more educated for future opportunities for employment,” Hinson said. “(Sommers) has been, I think, very instrumental not only to the students of Butler Tech, but throughout our county and throughout our region in being a key component of being able to bring business and education together. ”
CEO oversaw growth, innovation at Butler Tech
Robert Sommers said his biggest challenge, upon arriving in 2002 as CEO of Butler Technology and Career Development Schools was that the staff was not being used to its greatest potential.
“It had great staff (with) great intelligence and they really hadn’t been allowed to breathe,” said Sommers, looking back on his tenure as he prepares to start a new job in Michigan in March.
“I remember the first day, there was a big stack of purchase orders sitting here on the desk. Every school’s purchase order for the whole organization went through the superintendents office. I took them down to the supervisors and I passed them out, and they said, ‘What are you doing?’
“I said, ‘Unless it’s a purchase order that comes from you, make the call.’ To this day, the only purchase orders I approve are the people that work directly for me.
“People had not been allowed to make decisions,” Sommers said.
Kathleen Klink, associate vice president for online education at Butler Tech, agreed, saying she perceived the district in a similar light while serving as superintendent for Lakota Local Schools.
“People were so regimented and people were so tied down to whatever their role was. I think he opened doors for people and allowed them to blossom, and allowed them to recognize what it took to be more effective and more efficient in their particular jobs. That made a world of difference.”
Sommers soon set about creating what he called the Butler Tech decision framework, which asks: Is it ethical, can you afford it and will it improve student performance? Will it improve staff, stakeholder and customer (student) satisfaction?
“That was important to us: the idea that students were customers and that our product is educational experiences,” Sommers said.
“Then we went about the business of organizing, not around functions like human resources, technology and facilities, (but) around students.”
Since Sommers joined the school, it has doubled in size to more than 27,000 students.
He also realized upon his arrival that few knew what Butler Tech was.
It began in Hamilton as the D. Russel Lee Career-Technology Center, but it now boasts more than 190 satellite programs in 10 affiliated school districts.
It spends around 15 percent of its $30 million annual budget on innovation and upgrades such as a new Chinese learning program. And new buildings have sprouted along state Route 4.
“Our first community survey, nearly 10 percent of the community could identify us. Today, when you ask the question can you name a technical school district in your area, 54 percent of the people say Butler Tech. Chambers (of Commerce) know us better than ever before,” he said.
Joe Hinson, president and CEO of the West Chester-Liberty Chamber Alliance, said Sommers will be sorely missed.
“His impact will be hard to replace. Because anytime you can get somebody in a key role that is an educator with a business mind ... it just helps the whole region in moving toward economic growth, stability and sustainability by doing the fundamentals of education, which basically he promotes day in and day out,” he said.
Sommers, like all educators, also had to tackle funding challenges.
“We’ve designed programming and combined services that actually attract more funding even though on a per-pupil basis sometimes it wasn’t as good,” he said. For example, the district’s administrative cost moved from about 10 percent down to 6 percent in 2009, which has resulted in a savings of nearly $2 million.
“That’s four points below the industry average. That’s a lot of money. We redirected that into technology, instructional supplies, new facilities and curriculum redesign,” Sommers said. “We created options that were desirable to students. All with no new taxes.”
Sommers, 54, and his wife, Denise, have four children — two live in Atlanta and two in Middletown — and two grandchildren with a third on the way. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in education from Miami University in 1977, and his master’s degree and doctorate from Ohio State.
Klink said Sommers is clearly a leader.
“He understands what leadership and having a vision mean, and he’s been able to take his leadership skills and allow Butler Tech to become the district that it is. I quite frankly don’t think it would be as innovative and as effective if he hadn’t been there,” she said.“He made a mark by recognizing what the community needs, he clearly understands the value of the customer and listening carefully, and he’s been able to translate that into opportunities.”
“We’re not satisfied with being normal, average and run of the mill good,” Sommers said. “It’s that quest to be exceptional, hopefully, that’ll be hard to kill.
Contact this reporter at (513) 483-5219 or dewilson@coxohio.com.
About the Author