Luminary... It's Five Star News! Lighting the Way with LuminaryWelcome to the first installment of our quarterly newsletter! Luminary will help light the way to solving your complex business challenges by providing you with educational information, project highlights, Five Star events and other relevant industry and company news. We want this newsletter to be valuable for you so please share your feedback and suggestions on topics to cover. Too Good Not to Share[As we come across industry news and information too good not to share, we'll share it right here, every quarter!]The Other Retention Problem Nearly half of students who enroll in college exit without a degree. Even more alarming, only about 30 percent of community college students graduate. As you know, retention problems result in fiscal pressure for institutions and financial hardship for students who leave with debt but no degree. There is a shift happening and a stronger collaboration between employers and institutions is emerging. The underlining goal and answer to much of the retention problem lies in the ability to create clear pathways for awarding credit for prior learning. Read on to see how Five Star is committed to the cause and visit Inside Higher Ed for the full opinion piece. MCO Website RedesignMass Colleges Online (MCO) is a collaborative of public state higher education institutions involved in the design, delivery, management and assessment of online, blended and other technology-mediated learning formats. As part of their TAACCCT grant and the initiative to promote GPSTEM education, MCO needed a partner to redesign their current website. Redesign needs include robust analytic reporting capabilities, responsive design, unique log-ins, user-hierarchy and a powerful content management system that can be controlled by MCO administrators. With extensive experience in the space – in higher education and beyond – Five Star was selected as MCOs project partner. Stay tuned for more as the project progresses and see some other higher ed solutions Five Star recently introduced. Where We've BeenThe team recently returned from the National Association of Workforce Board's annual meeting. Five Star led a panel on workforce data integration and planning, with a focus on three states, three different models and three regional approaches. Let's talk about how Five Star's custom tools and solutions can streamline your process. We wanted to share one of our favorite inspirations from the event... a quote that captures our mission well: And, check out our Events page to see where we will be next. Project Highlight: Industry Needs YouFive Star's technology solutions helped an Ohio/Pennsylvania workforce development group close the gap between skilled workers and available jobs. With the introduction of a dynamic, intuitive and scalable website and content management system, the workforce development group experienced a five-fold increase in site visitors – driving the industry forward and breaking down barriers to economic growth. Access the full project highlight to learn more.
Employee HighlightMay 2017 marks Cory Seaman's 20th anniversary with Five Star. As Five Star's first employee, he plays a vital role in the success of the business. Leading our research and IT services, Cory is closely involved in the development and execution of client projects. A Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, he is always keeping the team, and our clients, informed on the best technologies available in the market. Five Star CaresFive Star recently hosted 25 ninth graders from a local high school. With a strong interest in technology and a connection to our friends at Zulama, this group of students selected Five Star for their career day and visited our offices to learn more about our world. The Five Star team introduced the students to opportunities in software development, marketing, leadership and project management. We're hoping we met a future Five Star employee! A Note from Our FoundersWhen Five Star was founded in March 1997, we had a simple vision: to create a company where talented people could do challenging work, with interesting clients, in a fun environment that fosters growth. We also wanted to be easy to work with and give back to the community. In that spirit, we built Five Star to continually evolve to market needs – those brought to us by our clients and needs we perceived. Often an evolution began with a client simply saying, “Hey guys, do you think you can help with... ”, or us saying, “Have you ever considered... ”. That was the approach we took when we built our first online learning course in 1997. And we took the same approach decades later when we built a workforce talent matching system that has impacted thousands of adult students and transitioning workers across the United States. We approach all projects, large or small, with the same level of openness and enthusiasm. Leveraging 20+ years of Insight, Ingenuity, and Innovation, Five Star will continue to help solve your challenges and enhance your efficiency to make it easier for you and your teams to achieve your goals. After two decades, our work is still challenging, our team more talented, our clients are as interesting as ever – and we are still having fun! We will highlight that in Luminary. Thank you for the journey; we can’t wait to see what happens next. David Colaizzi Lou Camerlengo |