Business Connections fro Winter 2020

4 WINTER 2020 BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT The Oyster Ridge BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) is a legal entity made possible through an agreement between Western Wyoming Community College and Lincoln County School District #1 to offer educational services not specifically being provided by either of them. The mission of the Oyster Ridge BOCES is to serve the higher education needs of the community through education and skill set training. Continuing education and enrichment helps people improve their lives A Variety of Classes Located in Diamondville, it offers continuing education and enrichment in the following areas: • Vocational, technical and professional education • Broadly based education in the Arts, Sciences and Humani- ties for degree seeking and non-degree seeking students • Personal growth, recreation and leisure, along with mental and physical fitness Bridget Stewart, Executive Director of Oyster Ridge BOCES, said, “Our BOCES is designed to provide high school and adult learners with adult basic education and online college-level classes as well as fill any other educational niche that we can handle more effectively than either WWCC or LCSD #1 could do alone. We work closely with both LCSD #1 and WWCC to ensure that our educational programs provide a seamless transition from high school to college and enable people who have been out of school awhile to smoothly transition back into educational or training programs.” Connecting with All West Oyster Ridge BOCES currently gets 100 Mbps fiber internet and Hosted VoIP phone service from All West. (As their broadband needs grow, All West will be able to provide internet speeds up to 1 Gig.) The relationship between the two organizations began in 2016. Phil Marchant, Corporate Sales Executive, explained, “All West expanded their fiber optic footprint throughout portions of Kemmerer and Diamondville during summer 2016. Later that fall, Oyster Ridge BOCES signed up for high speed broadband and had their phone numbers ported over to All West.” He added, “Oyster Ridge originally received their data and voice services over copper lines from the incumbent telco. When I initially contacted Bridget Stewart about All West’s fiber, she was excited to switch in order to get higher internet speeds. In June 2019, Bridget reached out to All West and asked about a new phone system to replace their analog voice service and provide enhanced features such as voicemail to email, music on hold and Oyster Ridge BOCES Bridget Stewart, Executive Director, talks with team members about plans for 2020.

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