SMC Chairman Dr. Fred L. Mathews and Secretary Jan Kairis cut the ribbon Sunday afternoon.

By JOHN EBY
Dowagiac Daily News

A $3.2 million renovation and expansion of the 1968 A.C. Kairis Building was unveiled with ideal weather Sunday afternoon.

“Al” Kairis’s widow, Jan, was appointed to his seat in 1985.

In her quarter century on the Board of Trustees, including secretary since 1991, she has attended an estimated 850 meetings without pay.

“It has been a privilege to have been part of the growth of SMC,” said Mrs. Kairis, 90, who met her future husband while teaching meteorology, navigation, aerodynamics and aircraft identification for the U.S. Air Force.

“Fortunately, we live in a community that values education and supports it.”

She introduced three of her four children, including twin daughters, and two grandsons.
“This rededication means a great deal to the Kairis family,” she said.

Board of Trustees Chairman Dr. Fred L. Mathews said the Kairis building “demonstrates this college’s constant quest” to “always stay on the cutting edge for the benefit of our students and employers with whom they may someday work.”

Mathews said before SMC was established in 1964, 41 percent of the adult population in the college district had an eighth grade education or less — compared to 2.5 percent today.

On Aug. 8, 1984, SMC dedicated the A.C. Kairis Aviation Complex.

He had been named to the Board of Trustees in 1967 following the death of founding trustee Fred Hayden of Cassopolis.

Al Kairis, born in Chicago in 1918, moved to Edwardsburg with his family at 7 “during the early and dark days of the Depression,” Mathews said. “As a child, he saw his family’s home repossessed.”

Al graduated from EHS in 1937 and completed a two-year program at South Bend, Ind., Business College. He then enrolled at the University of Notre Dame and studied aeronautical engineering.

When World War II broke out, Kairis joined the Army Air Corps and became the command pilot on a B-25 bomber in the Pacific Theater, flying numerous combat missions.

During his training, he met Jan, an instructor at the Mississippi Institute of Aeronautics.

They married in Columbus, Miss., on Sept. 18, 1943.

After the war, the Kairises moved back to Al’s hometown.

Al enrolled at Notre Dame law school and sold real estate nights and weekends to feed his family. He found a natural knack for salesmanship and walked away from his final year of law school to go into real estate fulltime. Jan joined him as a real estate broker in 1974.

“Al told me there were houses on Eagle Lake he and Jan sold five times,” Mathews said. “Talk about customer loyalty.”

It was Richard Weinman, vice president of Dowagiac Savings and Loan Association, who introduced the optometrist to the “dynamic duo” of real estate, who headed up the successful November 1964 campaign in the Edwardsburg area to establish SMC.
“Al had no peers as a salesman. Jan was the organizer.”

In 1967, the year Al Kairis joined the board, two Van Buren County townships, Hamilton and Keeler, voted to attach themselves to SMC’s Cass County district.

Kairis, who was treasurer 10 of his 17 years, died Nov. 21, 1984, at 66.

The board voted unanimously to fill the vacancy with Jan on Jan. 9, 1985.

SMC President Dr. David Mathews spoke to a “decade of transformation” which remade the Barbara Wood Building, the Charles O. Zollar Building, Fred L. Mathews Library and now what will henceforth be known as the Jan and A.C. Kairis Building in tribute to the Eagle Lake couple’s distinguished service for 42 of SMC’s 46-year history.

The $3.2 million renovation and expansion provides additional lab space for the automotive technology program, as well as additional classroom space equipped with smart technology and the relocation of the construction trades technology program from the Niles campus to Dowagiac.

The project was funded $1.6 million through state funds and $1.6 million from a building reserve the Board of Trustees built over the years.

Trustees are proud that the renovation and expansion required no new taxes despite rapidly declining state resources over that same decade.

The 7,498-square-foot Kairis building was erected in 1968 to house SMC’s aviation program. It was enlarged in 1982 with a 9,375-square-foot hangar.

Over time, the aviation program experienced declining enrollment, as there were no jobs locally for graduates.

By reallocating aviation space and with $500,000 made from auctioning that program’s assets, SMC was able to invest in its auto program, with the hangar becoming the auto lab.

When students return Sept. 7 for fall semester, they will find more auto lab space to work on vehicles including a hybrid car with a projection camera trained under its hood to allow them to become versed in the latest technology.

In addition, new equipment includes three new hoists, a five-phase emissions diagnostic machine, a new brake lathe and a classroom with a hoist which will allow faculty to teach more hands-on instruction.

The classroom will provide a training environment students would see in a dealership.
All three classrooms have smart technology (audio-visual system), including the auto lab.
Students have use of the special camera on wheels for projecting various car issues to a class over the AV system.

President Mathews said auto program enrollments have doubled since 2005.

Building enhancements include expanded space for the growing program, as well as new flexible training space for emerging technology training in this region.