President's Office

PCC President Search

CCCS Chancellor Joe Garcia has identified three finalists in the running for president of Pueblo Community College.
 

Cathie Cline, Ed.D.Cathie Cline, Ed.D.

Finalist 3

Cathie Cline, Ed.D., serves as president of East Arkansas Community College. Cline has been a transformative leader who brought vitality and cohesion to her campus. Under her leadership, with a renewed sense of togetherness and shared purpose, the college revised its mission and vision statements, adopted a new logo and its first ever mascot, and completed a substantive change process and a 10-year reaccreditation through the Higher Learning Commission.

Cline is known as a collaborative leader who thrives on change and empowering people. She successfully merged a technical college into the community college, expanded and enhanced career and technical education, completed much-needed physical plant renovations and upgrades, and significantly increased the college’s overall financial position.

During her tenure as president, student success rates improved, both overall and for diverse populations. All programs received substantial investment, enrollment increased resulting in a more diverse student body, engagement with the community increased and improved, and high school dual credit enrollment tripled.

Under Cline’s leadership, the college has worked to become the employer of choice in the region, improving salaries, creating more equity and transparency, and expanding benefits options. The college has participated in the Great Colleges to Work For survey for three years, beating peer institutions every time. 

Cline is active nationally in community college advocacy and workforce development, serving on the National Workforce Commission for the American Association of Community Colleges and the Advisory Committee of Presidents for the Association of Community College Trustees. She has been active in state policy making, serving on the Strategic Planning Committee for the Arkansas Division of Higher Education’s Master Plan Align 2026, focusing on workforce education goals. She served on committees to add employment outcomes to the state’s funding formula and to design a process for community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees. She is currently on the executive council for Arkansas Community Colleges and serves on the Board of Examiners for the Governor’s Quality Award, a part of the Malcom Baldridge Quality Award program.  She currently serves on the AREON board, which provides broadband service to institutions of higher education and medical facilities in Arkansas and works to increase high-quality broadband access to rural areas. She has been a member of the Board of Forrest City Medical Center since 2018, is a past president of her local Rotary chapter, and is active in all local and state chambers of commerce. 

Cline has a doctorate in higher education from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she completed substantial research on student success in community colleges, leading to a dissertation focused on the influence of faculty on rural community college student retention and success. She also holds a master of arts in English from Arkansas State University and a bachelor of arts in English from the University of Virginia. Prior to working in community colleges, Cline had careers in economic and community development and the news media. 


Kirk YoungDr. Kirk Young

Finalist 2

Kirk Young serves as the Vice President of Student Affairs at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York. He has served in this role since 2014. Prior to joining JCC, Kirk worked for eight years in multiple positions at Utah Valley University. Throughout his years working in higher education, he has worked in a wide range of functional areas, including enrollment, fundraising, student services, marketing, community and government relations, student success and retention, as well as serving for several years as the director of the Center for the Advancement of Leadership where he directed programming and taught various courses in leadership.

As a higher education executive, Kirk has established the reputation of being a change agent with the ability to build consensus and to achieve results by bringing together various constituencies within the college and local community. By focusing on, and promoting shared governance, he has achieved significant success in student recruitment, retention, strategic planning, fundraising, curriculum, and program development. He has proven himself as a leader in higher education who is passionate about innovation and change. He has pursued ongoing education to acquire the knowledge and ability to lead teams in producing innovative approaches to the challenges they face.

Throughout his professional experience, he has developed a passion for, and commitment to, the mission of higher education. Three oft-mentioned aspects of higher education that he has focused on are access, responsiveness to student need, and equity. Being a first-generation college student himself, he is an example of the impact higher education can have. It was a desire to do for others that which had been done for him that led to a career in higher education in the first place. Additionally, much of his career has been at institutions where many of his roles focused on increasing access and equity. From the beginning as a counselor in the GEAR UP program to his present-day position, he has helped to expand horizons and open doors of opportunity for students that they never had considered.

Kirk has worked to establish successful and enduring programs and services that provide workforce and academic programming, while inspiring colleagues and students with a clear sense of mission and vision.  


Chato Hazelbaker, Ed.DChato Hazelbaker, Ed.D.

Finalist 1

Dr. Chato Hazelbaker is the President of Northland Pioneer College (NPC), a non-tribal Native American-Serving institution (NASNTI) serving over 3,000 students in Arizona. Geographically, NPC is the second largest community college district in the nation with nine locations, including three on tribal nations.  During his tenure NPC developed a new strategic plan, expanded facilities and academic programs, and reversed a ten-year enrollment decline. Hazelbaker has held positions in Washington, Minnesota, and Montana. Last year, Hazelbaker completed the Aspen Institute’s New Presidents Fellowship.

Hazelbaker earned his doctorate in Organization Development from the University of St. Thomas (MN), a masters in leadership from Crown College (MN), and a bachelor degree in English from Rocky Mountain College (MT).  Professionally, he held leadership positions in enrollment management, marketing, information technology and government relations.  He has taught at the associate degree through graduate degree level in organization development, communications, and leadership.  

Committed to service and economic development both locally and to the higher education profession, Hazelbaker serves in several roles including the Arizona Governor’s Interagency and Community Broadband Advisory Council, Arizona Corporation Commission’s Policy Task Force on Coal Impacted Communities, and is the vice chair of the Mountain States Association of Community Colleges.  Hazelbaker has completed several accreditation visits for the Northwest Accreditation Commission (NWAC). Hazelbaker and his wife Shari Hazelbaker RN have three adult children.


Everyone who engages with the finalists is encouraged to provide feedback to the CCCS Chancellor via the provided feedback surveys.