Colorado Mountain College has purchased property near Airport Road in south Rifle where they hope to begin renovating quickly to offer new classes and programs for the trade education of Garfield County. 

“You certainly don’t need an associate’s degree to be successful,” said Tinker Duclo, Vice President and Campus Dean of Colorado Mountain College’s Rifle campus. “It does help to get a headstart on the trade you’ve chosen.”

CMC is a dual-mission college, merging traditional four-year university programs with community and technical college programs under one roof. The college has 11 campuses across Colorado. 

CMC currently offers automechanic classes at Rifle High School, where students are allowed to earn college credit alongside their high school diploma with concurrent enrollment. 

Due to growing trade school interest in the county, CMC is planning on turning a building into multiple classrooms, particularly labs for specific trades, including heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). 

“It’s a lot of lab work, so we’re planning on having a huge lab where HVAC technicians can work on their skills and learn hands-on,” Duclo said. “We are also planning to move the automechanic classes to this location, after we’ve renovated that part of it.”

HVAC classes would be in the easternmost part of the building. As renovations are complete in each classroom, CMC will move on to the next, hopeful for classes to begin in the new year of 2027 for HVAC as they finish the first part of renovation.

“It’s exciting, we’re planning to offer associates’ degrees in HVAC, auto mechanics, electrician, and we’re working on offering a curriculum for ADAS, advanced driver assist programs,” Duclo said. “Since those systems are being put into cars, we wanted our students to be able to work on those, so it will be tech-associated as well.”

Duclo said CMC has been reaching out to local businesses that would be willing to help with these new curricula, including Rifle Mayor Clint Hostettler, owner and president of Walker Electric in Rifle. 

“There’s nothing official yet, but if they start an electrical apprentice program, I want to be a part of it,” Hostettler said. “Hopefully I’d even be one of the teachers.”

Hostettler is a licensed master electrician and has been a huge proponent of CMC since he began on city council eight years ago. 

“It’s a career starter, it gets kids excited about going into the construction field, you get to go to work and school at the same time,” Hostettler said. “They could be working for me or another electrical contractor while learning, and that’s how apprenticeships should be.”

Hostettler has been doing electrical work for around 30 years and knows this will help jumpstart students’ careers. 

“This is the kind of school I believe in, having a diploma and job at the end of it,” he said. “CMC recently talked about having teacher apprenticeships, where students were learning but also teaching at the same time, and having those job specific degrees is what I think works.”

Hostettler hopes he’s not the only electrician that will be part of the program.

“Hopefully it would be a whole community effort,” he said. “That’s how you get things done.”

CMC also offers a multi-occupational trades Associate of Applied Science degree, which allows students to take multiple types of classes, such as auto-mechanics, carpentry, welding, and more.

“Usually this is for high-school students that aren’t exactly sure what they want to do yet,” said Jim Jones, Associate Dean of Skilled Crafts and Trades. “However, it means they can go on to an apprenticeship that is more specific.”

CMC does its best to make everything affordable for their students, and Duclo affirmed that. 

“Costs are not a reason to at CMC to continue your education,” she said. “We work hard to make it affordable for everyone, particularly residents who live in the Garfield County area.”

While CMC doesn’t offer associate or bachelor degrees for certain trades yet, they do offer certificates in carpentry, HVAC, welding and automotive services. Visit coloradomtn.edu/ to learn more.