CTU Centre of Excellence

Written by: Antoinette Reitz

There is great excitement around the CTU Centre of Excellence currently being renovated in the Glen Manor Office Park, in Menlyn, Pretoria.

When asking Ronald Meeske, CEO of CTU, as to when this Centre of Excellence was conceptualised, he said it was born out of a vision as to where IT training is going at the moment. It is to create a new experience for people in IT training; it is about the experience they obtain. It also encapsulates a place where high level computer training takes place at the scarce and critical skills levels.

With the promotion of Bonita Brown to General Manager, she was pleasantly astounded to have been given the opportunity to manage this Centre of Excellence. She says it will be an awesome environment of learning and is embracing the opportunity to enable a smooth transition between the corporate and career campuses as they amalgamate into one high level Centre of Excellence.

Staff members of the campuses are equally thrilled and definitely see this as yet another milestone reached on their road from good to great! Bonita’s corporate staff are extremely excited and work incredibly hard to meet and surpass their targets, so they already feel part of a winning team - no matter who they are and what their position is, they are going to embrace this chance to excel even more in their new environment.

As much as Bonita is reveling in the prospect of moving into the new building, she is also solely in charge of the many challenges which emerged to test her newly acquired ability to project manage all things related to construction: From contractor nightmares to get them to arrive on time for meetings, to scaring them away with tight time frames of completion. It also include organising meetings with electricians and plumbers, getting quotes for air conditioners, glass doors, ceilings, deck builders and candlestick makers.

A sneak peek inside the building reveals 19 training rooms, a 40 seat testing centre, a boardroom, four to five interviewing rooms to mention but a few, but at any given day, this building will be hosting 400 students and corporate clients to be trained.

It must be said that Sam and his team of workers are an absolute delight, working night and day, throughout weekends to deliver quality work (under the eagle eye of Bonita, of course) all in order to reach the deadline of completion at the end of July.

So, from small beginnings in the 1980’s, CTU underwent a renaissance during the early 2000’s up to now (and in the very same building which hosted the then Menlyn corporate branch, our head office and later the first small Menlyn career campus, all under the same roof), a full circle is now about to come to fruition. We are moving back to where so many CTU-ers started and through hard work and commitment, contributed to this next exciting step, the “Centre of Excellence”.

The official launch of our Centre of Excellence, where many dignitaries and staff will gather to celebrate this auspicious occasion, is expected to be held in September this year - so watch this space for more riveting tales of trials and tribulations on our road from good to great.

General Manager - Bonita Brown: