[Speaker 2] (0:00 - 0:19)
Good evening. I hereby call to order the meeting of the Lee College Board of Regents on January 15, 2026 at 6 p.m. We do have a quorum and our next order of business will be invocation and pledge to the United States flag and pledge to the Texas flag led by Regent Judy Geralds.

[Speaker 11] (1:07 - 1:21)
One state, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas.

One state, under God, one and indivisible.

[Speaker 13] (1:25 - 1:27)
Thank you Regent Geralds.

[Speaker 2] (1:28 - 1:36)
All right, next on our agenda program spotlight. We have Talkie USA commercial driver's license CDL training. Who's introducing?

[Speaker 6] (1:36 - 1:50)
Ran Parrott. Good evening everybody. Under duress and we're hoping that she maybe sucks at retirement and comes back and works with us in some capacity, but hey.

[Speaker 1] (1:51 - 3:51)
Absolutely, I'm going to move to the volunteer world and y'all all have my cell phone, so call me. So I'm excited tonight to come tell you about our CDL program that started last February, but first I'd like to introduce Ashley Iwani to you. She is actually going to stand up.

She is our program manager for the cross-credit classes. In addition to CDL, she oversees the forklift training, the certified logistics associate program, the certified logistics technician program. We're excited to say we have a new grant that we got.

Thank you Roberto for working with me on that. For a forklift maintenance technician program, this grant funds the salary, the curriculum writers, student support, and tuition for the year. We're currently starting the curriculum and that program will start in August.

It'll be offered the first time in August. In addition to that, we're starting a plumbing program in June. So as you can see, Ashley's pretty busy these days with new programs and keeping the current ones running.

I'd also like to introduce John Coleman. He's our CDL instructor and he comes with 21 years of experience. He's doing an amazing job and of all the students we've had, we started out very small groups because we wanted to get things right.

We've had 19 graduate and we've had 18 pass. So I think that's a round of applause for John. I'm going to now ask Ashley to come up.

She's going to tell you a little bit about the program and then she's going to introduce one of our students who has passed and now has a job. He's going to tell you about that and then our wonderful partnership with TALKE. Alex Ron will come up and speak at that time.

So we're excited. We want to see smiles.

[Speaker 4] (3:51 - 7:33)
All right, good evening everyone. My name is Ashley. I'm tall, so I need to adjust this.

All right, so I wanted to tell everyone a little bit about the journey to get here. The Lee College CDL program at McNair is just shy of a year. We started February 10th last year.

Our Huntsville campus, they have a CDL program and that program is a program that really prepares individuals within TDCJ to earn gainful employment upon re-entry by means of having their CDL. And so a great thanks to Donna Zuniga, who's been an incredible resource, as well as Bruce Corbill, who's been a fantastic instructor and a great help who's been valuable to us as well. But there are obvious differences between TDCJ and the McNair campus.

So there has been a ton of trips to the DPS office to really learn compliance and to learn regulations. We have been very familiar with navigating fmcsa.gov, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Got it right.

We've partnered also with an occupational testing group that really keeps drug and D.O.T. physical records within the FMCSA drug and alcohol clearinghouse. We've been very deliberate and very accurate in compiling the right set of guidelines to allow students to enroll in our program. They have to have their D.O.T. physicals, they have to have drug screens, they have to have their driver's records, and ultimately they have to have their COP, which is their commercial learner's permit. We started with just one truck, okay, and one truck came from Huntsville. We now have four. We have one Connex, as you see, that was donated from Talkie to now having three trailers in total.

We've gone from plain white trailers to fully designed and wrapped containers with Lee College signage, ultimately to increase visibility in the community. And then we had our first group, Chambers County, 102 Airport Road, the health services building, and when there was a conflict with scheduling, we'd set up shop at the courthouse. We weren't in trouble, but it was at the conference room in the courthouse.

Chambers County provided seven of their employees who are now CDL licensed. Then we started getting calls from Talkie. Five employees from Talkie are now CDL licensed, and three are currently in our present cohort.

The grant has also been an incredible help, and I want to thank Roberto Regas and his team for really helping to set these grants up for our students. It's one of the reasons why we have David Dominguez here, who's the student that we really want to spotlight. He'll tell you all about how he got in the program, his experience in the program, and finally his employment.

David?

[Speaker 7] (7:40 - 10:00)
How's it going? First, I want to start off by thanking Ashley and Instructor Coleman. I first found out about the program in summer of 2025.

I believe it was my sister. She actually just graduated from here in December. She told me about it from a flyer, and before then I was shopping everywhere to look for where I can go to, you know, start my career.

Once I heard about Lee College, I knew I wanted to come here because of my family members also being graduates from here. So when I first started, I reached out to Ashley, and she guided me where I can go get everything that I needed. She explained that you need all this, the CLP, you have to go to the the DMV and do all the tests, did all that.

She made it very clear what I needed to do, where I needed to do it, and the time frame that I needed to complete that so I can start the class. So I got that done. Finally, I start the class in October of last year.

That's where I met Instructor Coleman. At first, I was really nervous. I didn't know what to expect starting this journey.

It'll be my first time behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler. Kind of nerve-wracking, but driving with Mr. Coleman, it really made me more confident of his experience being over the road, how he would explain everything to me, and in detail how to show you how to do everything safely, and the correct way of operating a commercial motor vehicle. And finally, my date comes to do my test in Livingston, which was a very good experience.

The ladies there were very nice, very welcoming, and I passed my test. And now, just a month later, it was last Monday, I went to Dallas to do a three-day orientation for US Express. I just got back yesterday.

It was amazing. Finally, just a month after I get my CDL, I have a job that I've always wanted. So yeah, I really want to thank these two for guiding me to the success of getting my CDL, and finally starting a career that I've always wanted.

[Speaker 4] (10:05 - 10:11)
So I wanted to present David Dominguez with the Lee College Certificate of Completion for the CDL program.

[Speaker 13] (10:22 - 10:24)
So we have a question.

[Speaker 8] (10:25 - 10:29)
Hi, Fran. Can you tell everybody what cross credit is? Explain what it is.

[Speaker 1] (10:32 - 11:29)
So it's non-credit, but with cross credit, we work to be able to move students that come in on the non-credit and cross them over to the credit. One example I can give is with Forklift, CLA, CLT, your certified logistic technician and associates. If the students pass those three on the non-credit side, we can issue them six hours of credit in logistics to get them to continue in the program.

And we have several that have started on the non-credit side that has moved into HVAC and has moved into logistics and to welding. So it's working to start a lot on the non-credit side and move them over. Do y'all have any more questions for Ashley or for David?

No? Okay. I want to show a few pictures real quick.

We have a little bit more.

[Speaker 13] (11:29 - 11:30)
All right, let's see.

[Speaker 1] (11:30 - 11:36)
Oh, okay. So, Ashley, you want to tell them about your group here?

[Speaker 4] (11:38 - 11:58)
Wonderful folks from Chambers County, a few wonderful folks from Talke, and one in the back who's self-enrolled. Probably one of the photos that featured in Polaris Magazine, I believe, the winter edition, thanks to Amanda Smoke, Estefani, and their team. Free trip.

[Speaker 1] (12:05 - 15:01)
We wanted to save that one for you. Also, I want to share that Talke has donated this Connex to us, and on the left-hand side is the Lee College, on the right is Natasha. She is the HR for Talke.

She works with us. Also, Richard is the president for Talke. We have Alex, and then Hamed is the one that manages the fleet, and what I will tell you is they have contracted a company, Freightline, that is on property for them, and they have allowed us to do our maintenance of our trucks there, and so we pay just the part, and they're picking up the labor, so another round of applause for that.

Also, we had some money to purchase a truck through the grant, and Talke is on top of things. A lot of times they replace their trucks at $200,000, and you know trucks run millions, so they could have gotten a lot more money for these trucks, but I told them what we had, and they offered us these trucks for $34,000. They could have gotten over $100,000, so they have been great partners.

So, I want to introduce Alex Bronze. He's a seasoned operation executive. He has over two decades in international experience in logistics, chemical, and hazmat handling and packing services.

As chief operating officer for Talke, he's headquartered in Montbellview, and he leads the strategic initiative for them. So, Leslie, I know you're happy about that. He's strategic, and he makes sure of operational excellence and safety, sustainable growth across the North American operations.

Throughout his career, Alex has held key leadership roles with Talke. He's also lived in Bahrain with Talke, so I thought y'all would find that interesting. His expertise spans supply chain, infrastructure development, organizational transformation, with a strong emphasis on innovation and environmental responsibility.

Under his leadership, Talke USA has advanced its capabilities in packing operations, hazmat transportation, and crafting responsible logistic solutions. Alex is recognized for a collaborative leadership style that builds high-performing teams. His commitment to safety, sustainability, and continuous improvement positions Talke USA as an industry leader in chemical and petrochemical logistics.

So, please welcome Alex to talk a couple minutes.

[Speaker 3] (15:04 - 19:23)
Thank you, Fran. Good evening, and thank you for allowing me to talk today about the incredible partnership with Lee College in the CDL program. My name is Alexander Böhm.

I'm the chief operating officer here at Talke USA, and the last year has been really an incredible journey together with Fran and the team. A couple of words about Talke USA. We are a specialized chemical logistics provider supporting major chemical producers here in the area.

We operate 120 of those trucks here in the area, and if you're a user of 146, you see them at least going towards the port. On the way back, we use a different route, but I hope you have been involved in a very positive experience with us, because we are priding ourselves with not becoming a burden to the community. We have 450 employees here in the area.

About 25% of those are CDL drivers. The remaining workforce is working across different plants and are engaged in on-site logistics. Because our operations depend on highly trained and safety-minded drivers, we really appreciate the joint development of this CDL program and allow our employees to join this journey.

Why does partnership matter for us? For one, high quality career pathways. The CDL program gives motivated employees a path into high demand and high skill jobs here in the region.

Workforce stability for us is very important, building our own pipeline to ensure that we have the right amount of CDL drivers that helps ensure reliable operations in the safety-critical industry. Stronger internal talent development. So at Talke USA, the program is offered to current employees.

So we have employees in forklift operating jobs or packaging operating jobs and we offer the training program to those employees, because for us it is important that we have employees that go into this journey with us together with the long-term vision. We know these employees, we know their safety mindset, and this is helping us to strengthen our culture in that area. The program blends classroom learning with hands-on driving experience, preparing the participants for their real-world readiness in industrial and chemical environments.

In 2025, Talke offered two internal CDL training slots per quarter to help employees move into those roles. This year, due to the strong interest and demonstrated benefits, we increased the commitment to four employees per quarter. This approach builds a safe, reliable internal pipeline, provides upward mobility for employees already aligned with our culture, and strengthens retention and engagement.

We looked at early wins and indicators of success and found for one improved safety mindset, better retention, and growing internal capacity, expanding our pool of CDL qualified employees. I want to offer a special thank you to Fran and her team. They are just incredible partners.

They always have an open ear they listen to what we need and they try to help us as good as possible and I think that is a prime example on why this partnership really works with the industry. We were happy to support with equipment. In the beginning, Ashley said there was just one or two trucks and it was often the case that one of the two units was down.

We started to support with maintenance because we have a quite strong maintenance operation here in Mont but then when it came to our renewal cycle of equipment, we decided that we want to support this program and we really went out and provided two of those trucks at a very reasonable price. Thank you again for the strong partnership between Lee College and Talke USA and I hope this program is going to continue for a very long time and is going to continue to grow. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 11] (20:14 - 20:40)
Thank you. All right. Thank you, Fran.

[Speaker 2] (20:40 - 21:11)
What a great program. All right. Next order of business is disposition of minutes.

We have the board audit and investment committee meeting from December 15, 2025. The board building committee meeting minutes from December 17, 2025 and the board minutes from December 18, 2025. Do I have a motion to approve?

Motion from Regent Warford, second Regent Cotton. Any corrections, comments or discussion on the minutes? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

[Speaker 11] (21:12 - 21:12)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (21:12 - 21:43)
Any opposed no. Minutes have been approved. Next order of business report of the chairman.

I do not have a report, I just want to publicly give my condolences to Regent Hall, the loss of his sister Linda Haltom who wasn't planned and I know it's been a struggle for your family and I just want to offer prayers of condolence and peace for you and all your family. Difficult. So, I don't have a report.

Someone from the building committee have a report?

[Speaker 8] (21:43 - 22:23)
Yeah, I do have a report. Thank you. In Regent Fontenot's absence, I will give the report for him.

The building committee met yesterday. We met at the pack and we toured room for the possibility, looking at the possibility of expansion or doing something that would make it more feasible for the college. We also looked at a couple other areas and talked about some improvements and some changes we might make.

Again, possibilities we were discussing and then we walked across the street to the old western auto building. Oh, nobody's as old as I am in here. Y'all probably don't remember.

[Speaker 4] (22:23 - 22:25)
Oh, okay. There's two people.

[Speaker 8] (22:26 - 22:46)
Anyway, executive catering building across the hall. The administration had already toured that building many months ago but then with some recent conversations we thought we'd take a look at it as well just to see if there was possibilities for a good use for Lee college and that is my report.

[Speaker 2] (22:46 - 22:54)
Thank you. Any questions on this report? All right, thank you.

Policy committee? Regent Hall?

[Speaker 10] (22:54 - 23:38)
Yes, yes. I have a report we've yet to meet. That's your report?

No, that's not it. We are going to meet on February the 3rd. We're going to finish up, I think, update 49.

There's one policy and we and we will be reviewing our work from home policy at the request of the board but we have a number 50 update from TASB and that contains over 100 legal changes and so forth so there will be quite a substantial coming in future. We look forward to that report. I'm sure I'm sure you do.

I look forward to meeting and looking at all this. When did TASB number one start? Before I came around.

[Speaker 2] (23:39 - 23:45)
I'm just, well we're at 50, right? We're at 50. Okay.

All right, audit and investment committee? Regent Geralds?

[Speaker 9] (23:45 - 25:30)
Yes, we met on Tuesday. The audits in progress are the EEC professional development PD travel internal. Well, the final draft is with the provost but we haven't had that presented yet.

International education is in draft with the president and the CFO. It'll get reviewed by them this week and it'll come to us at the next meeting. Main campus risk assessment results with IT facilities and Mr. Quinn and then the EEC convocation PD and administrative and staff training. That draft is work in progress. Cyber security mapping Texas requirements to lease present state. Those will come to, those should be completed and come to us at our next meeting which will be probably towards the end of next month.

A couple more in pre-planning. Content management and records retention. Business impact analysis will be in pre-planning and last meeting because I forgot my notes and my glasses.

For the board or anyone who wants to look the packet, David has detailed notes of that meeting if you want to go and enjoy that but we also went over in the prior meeting about the use of the P card and it was a moderate rating and found that the P card is not aligned with the state of Texas requirements or lease procurement policy and they will implement a better policy for that so that that's going to be fine and then we talked about the security at McNair that the lack of a fence but there's constant security there so that is an elevated rating but it is constantly being monitored.

[Speaker 2] (25:33 - 25:35)
But your committee has been busy.

[Speaker 9] (25:36 - 25:38)
Well Greg Goins has been busy.

[Speaker 2] (25:38 - 25:46)
Greg Goins has been busy. Thank you Greg. Any comments or questions for Regent Gerald?

Next we'll move to report of the President. Dr. Villanueva.

[Speaker 6] (25:46 - 27:30)
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to start by saying that on Monday we began the semester officially and it was wonderful as always to welcome back our students to see them on campus and a number of our faculty also returned and we had a wonderful professional development week and it was filled with information sessions and learning opportunities and so that went very successfully as well. So as it relates to enrollment I'll have more details as we continue to collect that because we're still ongoing and so I'll be happy to present those numbers to you at a later date and then I wanted to call out Regent Himsel.

So as yes that's never good. Well it is and it isn't you'll just have to say. Well as you guys know Regent Himsel and his wife Debbie single-handedly demolished the Exxon the Exxon Mobil White House right and so but what's very unique about that and we really by the way appreciate the five thousand dollars in donations college for our students but ironically and this I think this is just a beautiful story.

Regent Himsel learned about one of our Lee college students who's in our art program and her name is I don't wanna mess this up is Jatniel Sanchez and he learned that she had did a an art piece on the White House and so so she created that piece and Regent Himsel bought the piece from the student and generously supported her and we're very grateful to him and we want to present you with something.

[Speaker 2] (27:34 - 27:34)
Thank you.

[Speaker 6] (27:34 - 27:54)
That wasn't such a bad surprise. Is Amanda still here? Did you say just a picture?

[Speaker 11] (27:54 - 27:55)
State picture.

[Speaker 6] (27:57 - 27:58)
Awesome.

[Speaker 11] (28:33 - 28:34)
Thank you. Thank you Regent Himsel.

[Speaker 6] (28:45 - 28:59)
And a little birdie told me that Chief Williams doesn't like to have things said about him but today is his birthday and so we wish him happy birthday wishes. He takes very good care of us here on campus.

[Speaker 8] (29:01 - 29:02)
He's coming in.

[Speaker 6] (29:02 - 29:03)
Is he coming in?

[Speaker 2] (29:04 - 29:06)
Happy birthday Chief.

[Speaker 6] (29:06 - 29:13)
Happy birthday Chief. Thanks for everything. So on that note that is the.

[Speaker 2] (29:14 - 29:23)
All right well thank you very much. Next we'll move to informational reports. We'll start with report of Lee college resignations and or retirements.

Dr. Villanueva.

[Speaker 6] (29:23 - 29:38)
Yes we have one resignation. Saw Yen Tan faculty member in electrical technology and then we have one retirement Lisa Tuck faculty member in geology and safety management at the Huntsville Center. And so that is it.

[Speaker 2] (29:38 - 29:47)
Great. Thank you. Questions for Dr. Villanueva?

Next we'll move to our financial report. Mr. Jacob Atkin.

[Speaker 13] (29:49 - 29:50)
Favorite time of the month.

[Speaker 5] (29:55 - 33:26)
Thank you. It's good to be with you this evening. Just a short update on Lee college finances through the end of December.

As you can see our cash balance on the operating side is 15 million. We start to collect ad valorem taxes in December. And so November is typically our lowest month in terms of our operating cash balance.

And then it'll continuously grow till about March and then it'll start coming back down again. But very typical activity. Really nothing out of the ordinary in terms of our cash flow for the institution.

In terms of our general activity, you can see there that we've collected about 25% of our district taxes. We'll collect the vast majority of that in January and February. The balance there.

Our tuition and fees are trending very close to what we have budgeted for this year. State appropriations are down just a little bit. Keep in mind we have two more payments that are coming up in terms of state appropriations.

And then our other local revenue is trending well and strong for us. Which includes investment incomes, grant income, other miscellaneous sources of income for us. On the expense side we are doing a good job of managing our expenses and staying on pace with budget.

As you can see here right now we're expecting a $1.4 million surplus at the end of the year. A small portion of that is related to our revenues. The biggest savings that we're seeing right now are with regard to contract services and other operating expenses.

And I will note that some of those items are a timing difference. We expect to spend some of those down. But as planned and as we discussed during the summer, our target is to be within less than a million dollars of surplus at the end of the year based on how we're expending our funds.

In terms of our facility projects, the cosmetology renovation is in final close out. We're very excited to have that finished and the facility looks wonderful if you haven't had a chance to tour that yet. It really turned out very nice for the institution.

And then we're making good progress on our ADA project as well. Finally in terms of the other capital projects that we approved this summer, we're seeing the most progress on our IT facilities and emergency management. We're in the midst of it and you're going to see those expenses increase regularly between now and the end of the month as the POs have been issued and most of the projects are underway officially now.

Finally in terms of our restricted funds, the grants and contracts that we get through the feds and the states, we have finally made it through the delays that we had because of the shutdown. We're back to our typical three-month delay on Perkins grants so that negative $258,000 is part of the regular typical cycle that there's nothing unusual there. And you can see that our net income is $907,000.

The grants and contracts are performing well for us this year. That said, any questions on the financial update?

[Speaker 13] (33:32 - 33:33)
Great. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 6] (33:33 - 33:58)
Can I just add one comment? There's one grant that's on here. I believe it's the SAMHSA grant that just a couple of days ago was revoked or canceled on us and it was $100,000 but we just learned two days after that that it was restored.

So that money is back. And it provides critical support in the area of mental health.

[Speaker 2] (34:02 - 36:10)
All right. Next we'll move to public comment. Do we have anyone signed up to speak?

No one signed up, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. All right.

Next we'll move to items of action on personnel. We have consent agenda. All right.

Consideration of new hires. The administration recommends that the board approve the new hires as presented below. We have Ms. Emily Haas, Ms. Eloisa Perez Lozano, and Dr. Cynthia Martinez. We've got a motion for Regent Cotton, second Regent Geralds. Any comments or questions on this item? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye. Opposed, no. Consideration of new hires is approved.

All right. I'm going to move the order of our agenda around just a little bit at this point. We're going to go into executive session.

The meeting of the Lee College Board of Regents on the above list to date after proper posting in accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code for the specific purposes provided will recess from open meeting to closed meeting. No action will be taken while the board is recessed in executive session. Thank you.

The closed meeting has adjourned and the board will reconvene into open meeting at 8.26 p.m. Who are we missing? Aaron?

[Speaker 11] (36:11 - 36:19)
Keep losing him. Right.

[Speaker 8] (36:19 - 36:47)
We're going to give Regent Thomas Don't do Don't go Do not have to go find him in the restroom. Sorry. Poor Aaron.

Like we all know his business now.

[Speaker 10] (36:48 - 36:50)
Sorry, Regent Thomas.

[Speaker 12] (36:51 - 36:54)
We all clap. All right.

[Speaker 8] (36:55 - 36:58)
When you gotta go, you gotta go.

[Speaker 2] (37:02 - 37:14)
Okay. We're back in session. We're going to move the new business.

The item on the agenda is consideration of approval of the college's organizational restructure. The administration recommends the board approve the proposed organizational structure.

[Speaker 8] (37:16 - 37:18)
I'd like to make a motion.

[Speaker 2] (37:18 - 37:20)
I got a motion.

[Speaker 8] (37:20 - 37:21)
I'll second it.

[Speaker 11] (37:21 - 37:29)
I got a second. Yes.

[Speaker 2] (37:29 - 37:47)
We had a close tie on a motion to table. I'd like to reconsider your I was trying to make a motion to table table this permanently the table from tonight from tonight. I'd like to rescind your second and first and accept this motion.

[Speaker 8] (37:47 - 37:50)
So we have more time to discuss. I'll take that motion.

[Speaker 12] (37:51 - 38:04)
I mean I would be interested in making an alternative like that would mean tabling for more discussion. Well I'm talking about I'm still willing to take action tonight on on the majority of that.

[Speaker 8] (38:04 - 38:07)
You can't this is this is the plan that's on the agenda.

[Speaker 2] (38:08 - 38:52)
We're not picking and choosing stuff. This is the reorganization request. So if you want to do that, then the table would be appropriate to allow that conversation to take place and we can't we can't change not an agenda item.

Not the do what we're we're we're talking about a that before I think the motion was to approve and you made the motion to approve this recommendation make a motion to amend this. You're asking me to table. I'm asking you would would you take back your motion allow a motion to table if we get a second we'll vote on that and this will come back to us later.

[Speaker 8] (38:54 - 38:59)
Right now I can make a motion to table the organization agenda item.

[Speaker 2] (38:59 - 39:10)
We have a motion. Do we have a second? All right.

We have a motion to table this agenda item to a future meeting and we have a second. Any other comments on this?

[Speaker 8] (39:28 - 39:32)
We need more time to discuss it to make everybody comfortable.

[Speaker 12] (39:33 - 39:44)
When is the retreat? Is it anytime soon? February 28th.

Right past the next meeting. We could we could discuss it then. I'm just throwing that out.

[Speaker 8] (39:44 - 39:45)
Okay. We could have a special meeting.

[Speaker 2] (39:46 - 40:28)
All right. Okay. We have a motion and a second to table this agenda item.

Do we have a second? All right. We have a motion to table this agenda item.

Any other discussion? If not I'm going to call all in favor raise your hand. Opposed?

Raise your hand. All right. We have seven for one against one absent.

All right. Motion has carried. Thank you very much.

See you can speak for me. I gave you an opportunity to speak for me. Thank you very much.

The motion carries. All right. Now we're to the last agenda item.

Matters of concern for future agendas. Anything anyone has in mind for future agenda items? All right.

Hearing none. We will adjourn. Thank you.