Clover Park Technical College

Clover Park Technical College (CPTC) is located in Lakewood, Washington, in the United States, 42 miles (68 km) south of Seattle. It has an enrollment of 3,500 full-time and 18,000 part-time students. The areas of study offered are

CPTC offers up to a two-year, Associate of Applied Technology (AAT) degree, depending on the program. Details are available from the college’s web site, below. The college is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

CPTC has a 124-acre (0.50 km2) main campus in Lakewood, and a 49,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) Aviation Training Complex at Thun Field in Puyallup. Since 2002 the college has undergone an extensive construction program to convert what was once a WWII navy supply base into a modern, pedestrian-oriented campus. The College employs 478 full- and part-time faculty, exempt and classified salaried employees.

CPTC recently created the Northwest Career & Technical High School. NWCTHS provides an innovative program which allows high school students to complete their diploma while simultaneously taking classes in their career program. In Fall of 2003 NWCTHS opened with 21 students. In 2005 it had 16 graduates. The NWCTHS currently has around 80 students.

The college was created by the Clover Park School District in 1942 as a vocational school to train 3,500 civilians as auto mechanics for the nearby McChord Field and Fort Lewis Army Post, and shipfitters, welders and blueprint readers for Tacoma shipyards.

After the war training was expanded to include aircraft mechanics, and Civil Aeronautics Administration certification. In 1954 the vocational school moved to its current location, and since has added over 50 training programs in a wide range of specialties.

Originally named "Clover Park Vocational Technical Institute," in 1991 the school became Clover Park Technical College when the Washington state legislature passed the workforce training bill, converting the state's five two-year vocational schools into technical colleges, and joining them with the state's 29 community colleges.

The school is the home of I-91 FM-KVTI, a 50,000 watt, student operated radio station and "CollegeVision" (Comcast ch28 and Click! ch89) which is an educational cable channel available in Pierce County.

The CPTC campus was the site of Tacoma Speedway prior to World War II.

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