Apr. 19, 2026 2:45p
(WGTD)---In the long search for a permanent successor to Gateway Technical College President Ritu Raju, decision time is close at hand.
Three finalists will be at Gateway and on the radio tomorrow and Tuesday.
Phillip King currently serves as Executive Vice-President at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Speaking to WGTD’s Greg Berg, King described technical colleges as having to consider themselves “shared community assets...where there is fluidity and movement between the external community, our workforce entities and the work that the college is doing so that we're educating, partnering and supporting any person who wants to interact with us in that region," he said.
King and the other two finalists all said that they’re prepared to lobby for more financial support and seek new partners.
Caron Daugherty is a Missouri native whose resume includes time spent at Moraine Park Technical College in Fon du Lac. "Technical Colleges only have so many resources," she said. "Technical education is incredibly expensive to deliver."
The third finalist, Veronique Tran, went a step further in saying that she would undertake a comprehensive review of Gateway’s programs in a bid to look for inefficiencies. "We need to look at the programs that we have and protect those that support and directly help students and complete and move into careers and see if there's alignment," she said.
Tran is a Vietnamese emigree who has a private sector engineering background in addition to college administration. She currently serves as a Vice-Provost at a technical college in Texas.
All three said they'd be comfortable in being the primary face of Gateway Technical College, a role that Raju said she did not relish.
A fourth finalist dropped out of the running on Friday, saying he had accepted another position.
The three remaining finalists will be on The Morning Show Monday and Tuesday. As usual, the programs will all be archived. The programs are already available on Greg Berg's Morning Show podcast.
The Gateway Board of Trustees could begin deliberations as soon as Wednesday.
Raju resigned early last year to take a technical college presidency position in Minnesota.
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