Damien Anderson wins Lanier Tech's 2018 Rick Perkins Award!

Damien Anderson wins Lanier Technical College's 2018 Rick Perkins Award Winner.

Oakwood, GA – Damien Anderson, Program Director and Lead
Instructor for the Lanier Technical College Automotive Collision Repair
Program has been named the College’s Rick Perkins Award Winner for 2018.

The winner was announced Wednesday at the annual Lanier Technical
College GOAL/Rick Perkins Award Luncheon at the Gainesville Civic
Center.

“Damien exemplifies the kind of teacher we pride ourselves in at Lanier
Technical College,” President Dr. Ray Perren says. “He not only engages
and trains his students in the classroom, but also brings a healthy
background of industry knowledge and experience. We know he will make
Lanier Tech proud as he moves forward in this competition.”

Anderson joined the Lanier Tech team in 2013. “I had zero teaching
experience,” Anderson says of his time before Lanier Tech, “and there’s
no public speaking in an auto shop!” He credits his students over the
past four years for helping him learn to become a great teacher worthy
of the nomination for this competition. He says he has constantly been
asked “why do you teach?” throughout the competitive process, to which
he replies, “I teach because I really believe in what we’re doing here.”

Each year since he began at Lanier Tech, Anderson has supported his
belief in the college and its students by serving as an advisor for
SkillsUSA - a partnership of students, teachers, & industry working
together to ensure America has a skilled workforce. In this time,
Anderson’s Automotive Collision Repair students have won three bronze
medals and one gold medal at the state level. The gold medal state
winner went on to finish second in the nation.

The Rick Perkins Award is given annually by the Technical College System
of Georgia (TCSG) to the Outstanding Instructor of the Year. In order
to qualify at the state level, each of the system’s 24 colleges select a
winner at the local level who then goes on to compete in one of three
regional competitions in March. From each region, three representatives
are then sent on to the state competition which will be held in April at
the Spring TCSG Leadership Conference.

In recent years, Lanier Technical College has seen two of its
instructors, Dr. David Byers (Program Chair for Dental Hygiene--2014)
and Christian Tetzlaff (Program Chair for Motorsports Vehicle
Technology—2015, now Dean of Applied Technology) win as the State of
Georgia’s top technical college instructor/Rick Perkins Award Winner.

The other three finalists for the Rick Perkins Award Competition at
Lanier Technical College were: First Runner-Up Annette Baker (Program
Director/Instructor for Health Information Management Technology);
Vanessa Jones (Dental Hygiene Clinical Coordintor/Instructor) and Dr.
Sravanti Kantheti (Program Chair/Instructor for Anatomy and Physiology).

Lanier Technical College offers over 50 programs of study in some of the nation's fastest-growing career fields including healthcare, energy, business and industry, and public or private service. More information about Lanier Technical College may be obtained by calling 770.533.7000 or by visiting www.laniertech.edu. Lanier Technical College is a Unit of the Technical College System of Georgia.