Awarded in April 2010
The Wayne County Schools Career Center is proud to honor the Prentke Romich Company (PRC) of Wooster as an Outstanding Business Partner. The business was nominated by Gary Wimer, Electronics & Computer Technologies instructor.
“PRC has provided many different avenues of assistance over the past 30-plus years,” said Wimer. “Many Career Center students and graduates have benefitted from assistance provided by PRC and Barry Romich. PRC provides an electronics technician advanced placement opportunity yearly as an ongoing service to our students and school. This is a wonderful benefit for our students and fantastic that PRC has been able to keep this in their budget/business plan with the downturn of the economy. They are always willing to provide field trips, technical assistance and donations.” PRC’s company co-founder and chairman of the board of directors, Barry Romich, has visited the Electronics lab and introduced students to new technologies.
Current Career Center alumni at PRC are: Tim Hurn, technical service representative; Tom Kuntz, machine shop supervisor; Ed Gasser, hardware engineer; Trudi Blair, consultant network support coordinator; Ken Geitgey, design illustrator; Susan Perry, inside sales specialist; Jessica Shaw, funding assistant; Dan Widmer, director of quality processes/international coordinator; Greg Carr, design manager; Marvin Indermuhle, vice president of research and development; Jenna Over, funding assistant, William Calvert (current Electronics & Computer Technologies student), temporary in technical service department, and Angie Nereadomi, funding coordinator.
The business, located on Heyl Road, was formed in 1966 when college engineering student Barry Romich and Ed Prentke, an engineer at Highland View Hospital in Cleveland combined their talents to begin producing communication assistance devices for the handicapped. In 1969, they produced their first communication device, a typing system based on a discarded Teletype machine.
Families, clinicians, and special educators select PRC augmentative and alternative communication devices as part of a communication strategy to assist a wide range of individuals with communication disabilities. For over forty years, PRC has led the industry by providing the highest level of communication technology and language development systems in the field. PRC consultants assist people with autism, cerebral palsy, ALS, and a number of conditions where assistive technology can improve communication and language development skills. Their mission is to serve the communication needs of their clients and they have secured that commitment into the future by becoming 100 percent employee owned.
At the Career Center, PRC has hired both graduates and students, served on advisory committees, provides services to the school, as well as judges, equipment and other items for SkillsUSA contests.
We thank Prentke Romich for their contributions to the Career Center and their ongoing support of career-technical education.