South Georgia Technical College President Dr. John Watford has announced that Martha Arrington will coordinate the 2022 Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership (GOAL) Program. Arrington is a retired South Georgia Technical College Cosmetology Instructor and former GOAL Coordinator for the college. She currently serves as the SGTC Jets Booster Club President and has agreed to coordinate this program for the 2022 year.
GOAL, a statewide program of the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), honors excellence among the state’s technical college students. The GOAL program is the first statewide program in the nation designed to recognize leadership and achievement by students on technical college campuses.
“The GOAL program seeks to spotlight our best students while emphasizing the importance of technical education in our modern workforce,” said Martha Arrington, who expressed her appreciation at the confidence Dr. Watford placed in her to spearhead the program.
Arrington was the South Georgia Technical College Cosmetology Instructor from 1972 – 2005. She earned a 30-year Faithful Service Award from the State of Georgia and the 1991 Commissioner’s Award of Excellence for South Georgia Tech and was the 1999 Instructor of the Year at SGTC. She coordinated SkillsUSA and GOAL, and helped with SGTC student activities before retiring from active teaching. She has remained involved at SGTC since retirement and currently serves as the SGTC Jets Booster Club President and is an SGTC Foundation supporter.
Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs Vanessa Wall served as the SGTC Goal Coordinator for 2021. She retired at the end of 2021 and President Watford asked Arrington to fill in for 2022 while the college named a replacement for Wall.
As the South Georgia Technical College GOAL Coordinator, Arrington will work with officials from South Georgia Technical College and the community to choose a student from SGTC to represent the college in the regional competition and will escort their college winner to the state competition in Atlanta during the GOAL Conference.
The college winner will compete with students from the other 21 colleges of the Technical College System of Georgia. The state is divided into three regions and the colleges within each region will compete to become one of the three finalists to make up the nine regional finalists.
All the college GOAL winners will attend the state GOAL competition in Atlanta during GOAL week. The nine finalists from the regional competitions will compete for the state GOAL title in Atlanta.
The title of State GOAL Winner earns the student recognition as the TCSG student of the year and the important responsibility to travel the state as the ambassador for Georgia’s entire technical college system. To make that travel easier, the winner also receives a new car from KIA, the statewide corporate sponsor of the GOAL program.
The honor of being named ‘best of the best’ is only made better with the winner receiving a new car, so there will be tremendous competition among the technical college students for the state award,” said Arrington. “At South Georgia Technical College, we’ll make every effort to select our most outstanding student because we want him or her to earn the award and bring home a new car!
Last year’s college GOAL winner was Dawn Ammons, a cosmetology student from Ellaville.