Making big plans: Greg Dozier and TCSG work to close Georgia’s workforce gap

Greg Dozier’s favorite quote is from an architect—Daniel Burnham, best known for crafting the master plan for downtown Chicago as well as the Flatiron Building in New York City. Dozier first discovered the quote more than 20 years ago when it was forwarded to him by the president of his alma mater, Georgia State University. He’s tried to live by it ever since.

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans—aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.”

There have been arguments that the quote is apocryphal, or cobbled together from several other comments attributed to Burnham. Its resonance, though, continues to endure. And to Dozier, a longtime public servant in the Peach State who is now commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia, it means one thing—think big.

“If we’re going to do something, let’s go big,” he said. “Nobody wants to just kind of fiddle around with something. We all want to do something that has a lasting impact in the areas we’re working. That’s why you work, for purpose. So let’s do something that we can really put our stake in. When we finish, let’s see the impact and really be proud of it.”

Burnham’s words certainly echo with Dozier and his staff today, as TCSG plays a growing role in filling the state’s workforce gap in fields related to engineering, architecture and construction. Developing a workforce in those areas is crucial in Georgia, whose success in attracting business has created a need for new buildings, roads and other forms of infrastructure. But the limited nature of the current workforce means not all projects can be completed within their intended time frames.

“There’s a constant need,” said Charlotte Weber, vice president of environmental planning at Lumenor Consulting Group, and chair of the ACEG Georgia STEM Workforce Task Force. “The Georgia Department of Transportation has had to stagger projects because there aren’t enough firms to build them. They’re having to prioritize and move things around, because there are only so many construction companies that can actually do the work. They’re constantly looking for more and more people.”

It’s an issue that demands big thinking, and the reach of a technical college systems that spans 22 colleges and 88 campuses statewide. Bolstering workforce development in engineering and its related fields in Georgia has been a priority for Dozier since he first took over at TCSG in January of 2020, that sense of urgency coming straight from the Golden Dome and the office of Gov. Brian Kemp.

“The governor has personally been involved in workforce for most of his eight years, so this focus goes all the way to the top,” Dozier said. “We’re In a period of rapidly evolving economic development, one that’s shaped by pressure on timelines, power infrastructure and workforce pipelines. We want to continue being that No. 1 state in which to do business, and just about everything we do in this state—whether it’s industry, transportation, housing or logistics—comes back to those three areas of engineering, architecture and construction. So we really have put that top of mind.”

Meeting the industry’s needs

The Technical College System of Georgia can trace its roots back to the early 1900s, when the state under a federal mandate created a vocational education board. Then as now, the goal has been to prepare student to enter the workforce—one that was changing from an agricultural to a manufacturing-based economy a century ago, and one that is in need of more personnel in engineering, construction and architectural fields today.

While TCSG has always had offerings in those areas, Dozer said, the current workforce shortage has led the agency to reexamine its programs and how they connect to the professional world. Roughly four years ago, Dozer and TCSG staff met with officials from ACEC Georgia, whose STEM Workforce Task Force also works to combat the engineering industry’s personnel shortage. The goal of those talks was to ensure TCSG’s curriculum met the industry’s needs.

“We had a real global conversation,” Dozier recalled. “We talked about, what do we need to have across all 22 colleges, and what is the curriculum that matches the future needs that you guys (in the industry) are seeing?”

Those conversations spurred TCSG to initiate career pathways in fields such as civil engineering technology, electrical and computer engineering technology, mechanical engineering technology, manufacturing engineering technology and industrial engineering technology. TCSG also has a program in which high school students can earn their diploma and college credits at the same time, an initiative that’s been expanded to include architectural and engineering drawing, engineering and technology, architectural drafting and electrical construction.

In addition, TCSG in 2025 added Stephanie O’Donoghue, formerly associate dean of computers, manufacturing and engineering at Chattahoochee Technical College, as its point person on engineering, architecture and construction curriculum. TCSG offers CAD training that ranges from a certificate to a two-year degree, and it’s partnered with Thomas and Hutton and EMC Engineering Services on a program launched at Savannah Tech that directly addresses the industry’s need for surveyors.

“We truly have doubled down in this area to make sure that we continue to produce the workforce of the future,” Dozier said. “We want to make sure that whatever industries are coming to this state has the workforce they need. And we believe that starts in this area of construction, engineering and architecture.”

Thanks to state legislation that pushed TCSG and the University System of Georgia to work closer together, students earning a two-year civil engineering degree at Ogeechee Tech can transfer into the same program at Georgia Southern. It’s a smaller version of a program used to attack the nursing shortage that accompanied the pandemic, which allowed technical college nursing students to transfer to four-year institutions and receive full credit for everything they’d already taken.

“We have bits and pieces right now, and we hope to make those global,” Dozier said. And there’s so much more: money appropriated by the General Assembly to promote apprenticeships, federal funds that pay for people to get upskilled or reskilled, the High Demand List initiated by Gov. Kemp to identify career fields in need of workers both in various regions of Georgia as well as statewide. It all makes for a full-court press on workforce development, with engineering firms and industry experts helping TCSG determine the playbook.

No small plans, after all.

“Our mission is to make sure we have a globally competitive workforce in the state of Georgia,” Dozier said. “That means we’re producing folks in this state who can handle any job that comes into this stare. And bigger that than, we believe that every single person we touch will have the opportunity for economic prosperity by giving them a skill in a high-demand, high-wage job field. I believe we have brought purpose to that vision.”

Placement and enrollment

Back before he was tasked with helping to close Georgia’s workforce development gap, Greg Dozier had another problem: long lines.

It was during Dozier’s tenure as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Driver Services, which operates over 60 locations statewide. The customer service centers at DDS—where citizens first get their driver’s licenses, renew or replace lost licenses, take a motorcycle knowledge exam or a commercial driving written test, among other things—had become infamous for their long lines. So DDS partnered with Georgia Tech, which performed studies on DDS locations and offered tips on improving flow and reducing wait times.

“I learned from that how important partnerships could be,” Dozier said. DDS was in the process of building a new customer service center in Locust Grove, but Dozier halted construction so the results of the Georgia Tech study could be implemented into the new facility. “That partnership gave me a some great examples early on as a leader of how you can really make a difference by just understanding where the hurdles are,” he added.

It was a lesson Dozier took into his next role as commissioner for the Georgia Department of Corrections, and later to TCSG—where “I wanted to set a vision of filling the workforce gap,” he said. He started in January of 2020, two months before the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a halt, forcing TCSG staff to get creative to try and maintain the semester-over-semester enrollment growth the technical college system had experienced before the outbreak took hold.

“It was an interesting time to be a leader in a new organization,” said Dozier, a Covington native. “But it also gave me a great opportunity to sit just about every day with our presidents on conference calls and figure out how to navigate things and challenge ourselves. This team did an incredible job of taking the students that we had in our care, and during a crazy, unpredictable time, making sure they graduated. We navigated them to the end.”

Coming out of the pandemic, Dozier said the colleges in the TCSG network created growth enrollment plans that matched job needs in their respective communities. And while it took time for TCSG to make up for what was lost at the height of the outbreak, the system has clearly regained its footing. Enrollment in the 2024-25 academic year was TCSG’s highest since 2013, Dozier said, and is tracking even higher for 2025-26. Last year also saw TCSG award 47,000 associate degrees and 81,000 certificates, both all-time highs.

TCSG in this past academic year had a 92 percent placement rate for graduates who studied in fields related to engineering, architecture and construction, Dozier said, and 99 percent replacement rate overall. “Our goal is to get that 92 as close to that 99 as possible,” he added, “because we want to make sure folks are tracking on what their personal goals are, and we want to make sure we’re meeting that skills gap that we have across this state.”

Enrollment is the lifeblood of technical and community colleges—not only is it a source of funding, but it ensures a steady pipeline of skilled graduates to address the workforce needs of the region and state. No surprise, then, that enrollment is critical to TCSG’s efforts in closing Georgia’s workforce gap, particularly in engineering and its related fields. Molding students into the next generation of surveyors, drafters and CAD operators hinges on getting them into class in the first place.

“It absolutely comes down to enrollment. With the state growing, we should always be seeing those areas grow as far as numbers. I can’t put enough emphasis on our local advisory boards at each college—they let us know if we’re succeeding, and they’re very loud if we’re not,” Dozier said.

“And we warranty our graduates—I struggle with saying that, because it sounds like we’re turning them into a product. But we believe so strongly in the in the learning that we provide, that if someone’s hired and they don’t have the skills they need, they can send them back to us and we’ll retrain them. We truly believe in the quality of what we provide. As we continue to grow in this state, we’ve got to continue to grow in numbers—and those numbers have to end up going into the field.”

It’s a huge task, with a seemingly endless parade of companies flocking to the Peach State. Yamaha, announcing the relocation its headquarters from California to Kennesaw. Pratt & Whitney, announcing a $200 million expansion of its Columbus plant. Global biopharmaceutical giant UCB, announcing a $2 billion manufacturing facility in Gwinnett County. The state needs people to design, engineer and build those facilities, and to work in them after they’re complete.

More and more, TCSG is playing a central role in developing the skilled workforce to sustain that growth. Clearly, it’s a time that calls for big plans.