AMERICUS — South Georgia Technical College (SGTC) President Sparky Reeves has announced that Cynthia Carter, the director of Career Services at the college, will coordinate the 2013 Georgia Occupational Award of Leadership (GOAL) program.

GOAL, a statewide program of the Technical College System of Georgia, honors excellence among the state’s technical college students.

According to Carter, the GOAL program is the first statewide program in the nation designed to recognize leadership and achievement by students on technical college campuses.

"The GOAL program seeks to spotlight our best students while emphasizing the importance of technical education in our modern workforce,” said Carter.

As the South Georgia Tech GOAL coordinator, Carter will work with officials from the Americus-Sumter County Chamber of Commerce, the college’s GOAL partner, to choose a student from SGTC to represent the college in the regional competition and will escort their college winner to the state competition in Atlanta during the GOAL Conference, April 24-26.

The college winner will compete with students from the other 25 colleges of the Technical College System of Georgia and one Board of Regents college with a technical education division. The state is divided into three regions and the colleges within the region will compete to become one of the three finalists to make up the nine regional finalists.

All the college GOAL winners will attend the state GOAL competition in Atlanta during GOAL Week, April 23-25. The nine finalists from the regional competitions will compete for the state GOAL title in Atlanta.

The title of state GOAL winner earns the student recognition as the TCSG student of the year and the important responsibility to travel the state as the ambassador for Georgia’s entire technical college system.  To make that travel easier, the winner also receives a new car from Chevrolet, the statewide corporate sponsor of the GOAL program.

“The honor of being named ‘best of the best’ is only made better with the winner receiving a new car, so there’s tremendous competition among the technical college students for the state award,” said Carter.  "At South Georgia Technical College, we’ll make every effort to select our most outstanding student because we want him or her to earn the award and bring home a new car!"

Last year's statewide GOAL winner was LaNette Holloman, a student in business management at Atlanta Technical College. SGTC’s GOAL finalist was Kerry Beaver, a culinary arts student.