KLAMATH FALLS – Klamath Community College announced that Klamath Falls City Manager Jonathan Teichert will be its keynote speaker for the annual commencement ceremonies on campus June 12.
Teichert is a product of community colleges, he likes to say.
“I am honored to be asked to deliver the keynote to KCC graduates,” Teichert said.
“I grew up on a cattle ranch in Cokeville, a rural town in Wyoming near the Idaho-Utah border. We came from a big family, lots of brothers. I was eighth of nine siblings.
“Community college really changed my trajectory in life. I wasn’t a very good student in high school, but I wanted to participate in sports and kept my grades up so I could do so. I attended a community college because I wasn’t ready for a larger four-year institution.”
“What I really learned was how to study. My teachers helped me and the classes were small, so that was a real advantage … much like KCC is now today. That — and working summers on a fencing crew — motivated me to get my degree.”
Of KCC he said, “I think it’s a great school, especially for the value. What I really like about it is the students are ready to enter the workforce in jobs where there is a career. I appreciate that KCC looks at filling those positions that are needed in our community. For instance, there is a huge shortage of truck drivers, and KCC has a CDL program to help with that. Well drilling is another need. And there is a high demand for students in the construction trades.”
Teichert earned a bachelor’s in health and physical education and later, after working in the public sector as a recreation coordinator in Idaho, earned a master’s in public administration from the University of Wyoming.
Teichert was hired by Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources to write a comprehensive outdoor recreation plan and continued working for the state until joining a planning and engineering office in Lincoln County where he grew up.
Later, he was a city manager in Douglas, Wyo., and came to Klamath Falls, after that.
“I really felt welcome when I interviewed for the city manager job here,” Teichert said. “It felt like a good fit.”
Teichert manages more than 150 city employees and the daily operation of the city. He has been in the post just over four years. He and his wife, Tryny, have one son, Julius, and a stepdaughter, Yolanda.
For more information about KCC and its programs, visit www.klamathcc.edu.
Klamath Falls City Manager Jonathan Teichert