Masynn Acheson reporter
Saturday morning was the marker of a milestone in Pittsburg State University’s history as not only was a building renamed, but the college it houses was renamed, and the mayor announced a new holiday for the city of Pittsburg. The previously named Kansas Center for Technology was renamed to be the Crossland Center of Technology with the College of Technology following suit in its new name of the Crossland College of Technology in honor of Crossland Construction.
Crossland Construction started as a local family run business and has grown into one of the leading construction firms in the country. The family is local, and they are responsible for a lot of the infrastructure in the area. Not only that, but they built the Center of Technology building thirty some years ago.
The Crosslands’ have a personal connection to the University as well as a business partnership. A sizable number of the employees and family members are graduates of PSU. Crossland Construction is also responsible for hiring an estimated 150 students between the years of 2012 to the present according to PSU President Dan Shipp, the next closest hiring somewhere in the range of 20-some-odd students from the Construction Management and Construction Engineering Technology programs.
Director of Media Relations here at Pittstate, Andra Stefanoni, stated in her press release of the event, “about 400 Pitt State alumni have helped build the company to what it is today.” Not only has the company done so much for the University as a whole, but they have benefitted from each other time and time again.
Shipp said that the Renaming Ceremony was in the works for around a year and a half and is the latest occurrence of this kind of event since the naming of Kelce. When Mayor Stu Hite heard of the event, he made the decision to announce the naming of a brand-new holiday in honor of the close partnership between the Crosslands and the community, naming Oct. 5 to be Crossland Appreciation Day.
Chris Schnurbusch, an alum of Pitt State as well as the regional president at Crossland Construction, was truly experiencing a full circle moment that day. Not only was he a student in the Construction Management program who had been hired by Crossland, but he helped in the actual construction of the massive project of a building. He had been helping to pour some of the concrete when he had lost a watch within the wet concrete and joked that it was probably still ticking away somewhere.
Most of the crowd at the event were Crossland Construction employees and family members, with most wearing red in preparation for the Oct. 5 football game, showing their pride in their former school. Gus the Gorilla was in the crowd, interacting with kids and adults alike, and spirits were high for the upcoming game.