Paul Berger

The Coast Community College District is mourning the loss of longtime trustee Paul Berger this week. Berger died January 29 following an illness. He was 82 years old. In November, Berger was re-elected to serve a fourth four-year term as trustee of the district. Berger represented portions of Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley. Board president Walt Howald said Berger's loss will be felt by the entire Coast District family. "Paul Berger was an icon in the Orange County education community," Howald said. "We are all saddened by this loss. He touched the lives of many students throughout his life. He was a great teacher, a great

trustee, and a great friend."

"Paul was an educator through and through. He truly cared about students. You could always count on him to attend events held by students and faculty," said Chancellor Ken Yglesias. "He gave much of his life to educating others."

Longtime fellow trustee Armando Ruiz served with Berger on the Coast District board for seventeen years.

"Paul was one of my dearest friends on the Board," said Ruiz. "He had a vision and a compassion for our students. His passing is a great loss for our district and our community and for me personally."

Berger received his Ph.D. in Educational Administration in 1963 from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to his election to the Coast CCD in 1987, Berger was the principal of Fountain Valley High School for 15 years and retired from the Huntington Beach Union High School District in 1984 as the principal of Marina High School.

Berger is survived by his wife, Barbara and his daughter Stephanie Fitzpatrick.

District Accepting Applications from Citizens Interested in Serving on Board of Trustees

The Coast Community College District Board of Trustees is soliciting applications from citizens interested in serving on the District’s Board of Trustees.

At their meeting February 2, the Board agreed to use the appointment process to fill the vacancy on the Board created by the death of longtime Trustee Paul Berger.

Eligible citizens have until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 2, to submit an application and be considered by the Board for appointment to the Board seat.

Brahmbhatt told the Board that the growth cap for the Coast Community College District in 2005-06 is set at 1.23 percent, which means the District will only receive state funds for enrollment growth up to that point.

Brahmbhatt told the Board that while the Governor’s budget did include some increases, it also includes proposals that would mean significant cuts to the District’s budget. Those include the following:

Brahmbhatt reminded the Board that the Governors’ proposed budget will be revised based on state revenues in May, providing a clearer budget picture.

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Coastline Community College News

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Donna Friebertshauser Embroiders Online

Coastline’s Donna Friebertshauser can now be found on the World Wide Web. Donna, who teaches Emeritus Art 400 at the Westminster Center, is the editor and featured embroidery expert on Craftgate.com. Craftgate.com is a website dedicated to crafting. Donna’s column focuses on embroidery techniques including the selection of a proper needle, history and embroidery dos and don’ts. Donna has received several awards for her teaching and written numerous books on the fine art of needle crafting. Donna is also the co-designer and consultant for “Needlecraft”, an Emmy-winning telecourse.

Westminster Learning Center Update

John Breihan and Ding-Jo Currie check out the progress of the
new Westminster Learning Center

Construction of the new Westminster Learning Center is moving right along. The grading of the site and compaction of the soil was completed in early September and was followed by pile driving the foundation. Pile driving is an extremely loud process and Coastline took steps to ensure that our future neighbors were informed of the construction timeline to avoid any inconvenience to the surrounding neighborhoods.

The new 42,000 sq. ft. two-story Center will replace the current leased Huntington Westminster Center and will house classrooms, laboratory facilities and office space.

The state-of-the-art center is scheduled to open in the fall of 2005.

Meet BERTT

By Gary Stromlund

In October, the Huntington Westminster Center hosted the final drill in the six-part BERTT (Business Emergency Response Team Training) course which began at Coastline on September 29, 2004. The training sessions were four hours long, once per week. BERTT is hands-on emergency preparedness training with an emphasis on procedures in the work place. Course objectives include: emergency preparedness, fire education/evacuation, triage and first aid, basic search and rescue, team organization, and a final emergency simulation

drill. Previous BERTT sessions had been held at the District, Orange Coast College, and Golden West College.

The final drill consisted of an earthquake exercise in which participants could apply all of their knowledge from the previous five sessions. Although the majority of the participants were from Coastline, employees from other colleges were also in attendance, with some making up missed classes from other sessions.

For the drill, the team was organized according to State-mandated SEMS/ICS (Standardized Emergency Management System/Incident Command System) guidelines. An Incident Commander was selected, and other participants were placed into sections such as: Operations, Planning/Intelligence, and Logistics, or further subdivided into Search and Rescue, and Medical Teams. A command post was set-up in one of the classrooms and FRS radios were distributed to team members.

The drill was held in the multi-purpose room which “experienced” a major earthquake. Inside the darkened room were overturned chairs and tables, as well as students who needed medical assistance. Prior to the drill members of their RED Cross staff used make-up and prosthetic devices to simulate actual injuries on the victims, such as an abdominal wound, burns, shrapnel, broken limbs, and different degrees of bleeding. Some volunteer victims spoke only Vietnamese or Punjabi. Rescuers were required to apply light search and rescue, fire suppression, cribbing, and triage techniques. Victims who needed medical care were moved to a triage area in another classroom.

The drill was filmed by Coastline’s audio-visual staff, as were previous classes, and will be incorporated into a training video.