{"id":346613,"date":"2021-06-24T06:06:49","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T20:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=346613"},"modified":"2021-06-24T06:06:49","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T20:06:49","slug":"attao-elaborates-on-nmti-facelift-project-and-koblerville-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/attao-elaborates-on-nmti-facelift-project-and-koblerville-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Attao elaborates on NMTI \u2018facelift project\u2019 and Koblerville site"},"content":{"rendered":"
Northern Marianas Technical Institute interim CEO Jodina Attao walks Saipan Tribune through a whiteboard where portions of her \u201cfacelift project\u201d for NMTI are written at NMTI\u2019s current location in Lower Base. (Joshua Santos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With many short- and long-term improvements for the Northern Marianas Technical Institute that are now in the pipeline, interim chief executive officer Jodina Attao is hoping the revitalized NMTI will leave an impact on future students and she plans to provide opportunities for alumni that want to give back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping that students who get certified here in the future come back wanting to be instructors. \u2026[We want them] to have the opportunity to pass on the knowledge that they gained from us,\u201d said Attao.<\/p>\n

Essential to this is what Attao describes as a \u201cfacelift project\u201d for NMTI, going into detail about her plans to reorient the Lower Base facility so that instructional classrooms are closer to workshops, the building of an NMTI facility in Koblerville, and other plans.<\/p>\n

At its core, Attao said the main purpose of the \u201cfacelift project\u201d is to create a school that future trade students would be proud of going to. \u201cThe facelift project is to help us entice enrollees to come in and register with us. If I was going to a school, I\u2019d want to be proud of where I came from,\u201d said Attao.<\/p>\n

She explained Tuesday that part of her long-term goals for the trade school is to move classrooms closer to their workshops within its Lower Base facility. \u201cThe ultimate goal is to get our classrooms tied to their specific workshops so that it\u2019s easier to transition from instructional learning to worksite learning,\u201d said Attao. She and NMTI staff expect to get this done before NMTI reopens for students on Aug. 18. <\/p>\n

As for other long-term plans, Attao said that construction work for NMTI\u2019s Koblerville location will take two to three years before completion, and the current plan is to move the trade school\u2019s administrative offices to the new site. Attao said she wants both NMTI facilities to be operating but to retain the Lower Base facility as the trade school\u2019s main campus. Funding for the construction of the Koblerville building will be funded through the $10.3 million that the U.S. Department of Commerce\u2019s Economic Development Administration gave NMTI on Feb. 18 this year. <\/p>\n

Attao promises to maintain transparency between her and the public in the long-term. \u201cI\u2019m very transparent with public information because that\u2019s the way I want to operate. If [anyone] has a question, I [am] open and honest in answering it,\u201d said Attao.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With many short- and long-term improvements for the Northern Marianas Technical Institute that are now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":346620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[479],"class_list":["post-346613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-nmti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}