Tom Obrecht has taken more than 100 classes at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) over the past 16 years.

The retired steel and auto industry executive has studied everything from cooking and foreign languages to bicycle repair through NMC’s Extended Education & Training program.

“I’m the old student poster child,” Obrecht says. “I’ve told many people that whenever the catalog comes out, it reminds me of a child when the Sears Christmas catalog comes out – I just pore over that thing.”

Obrecht is one of thousands who each year take advantage of a remarkably broad collection of non-credit classes offered through NMC – from local history and international travel to aviation, cooking, martial arts and music.

The students range from 4-year-olds attending College for Kids to retirees looking to keep learning, meet people and explore new interests.

“Historically we have served the senior population – and what better place to do that than Traverse City,” says Laura Stevens, who has directed the college’s Extended Education & Training program for the past eight years. “That continues to be a growing population of people who have amazing careers they’ve retired from and they want to come teach for us, they want to take classes and become part of our vibrant community.”

Life enrichment classes for adults still account for about 65 percent of the department’s programming.

And many of the instructors are themselves retired professionals with deep expertise in what they teach.

Among Obrecht’s instructors has been Kerry Kelly of Traverse City, a retired chemist and administrator from Dow Chemical Co. Kelly’s volunteer work with Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes eventually led him to teach dozens of classes on the history, habitat and natural features of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Kelly has taken students into some of the park’s more remote and unusual locations and says participants respond to instructors who genuinely know and love their subjects.

“The class picks up on the energy that the teachers have,” Kelly says.

Stevens says the enrichment program draws from a roster of nearly 300 instructors, including scores of local and retired professionals like Kelly. It recorded 3,225 registrations last year, including students who took multiple classes.

Increasingly, some NMC extended education students are taking their learning well beyond northern Michigan.

The program launched international educational tours in 2023 under Program Manager Dr. Christa Abdul-Karim, a former anthropology professor at Washington State University who has traveled to more than 80 countries.

Abdul-Karim has led NMC groups to destinations including Italy, New Zealand, Greece and South Africa, with Sicily planned this fall and Poland next spring.

“Those have really helped us reach into a different audience, go global with our programming and elevate the experience that we can provide,” Stevens says.

Trips generally include no more than 19 students and last up to two weeks. They cost roughly $6,000 to $9,000 and routinely sell out.

Julie Mellgren worked in financial services in Boston before moving to northern Michigan six and a half years ago. She began taking extended education classes, then joined an NMC trip to Africa two years ago and is planning another international trip next year.

“I do the extended ed classes regularly, and the trips are kind of a bonus,” Mellgren says. “I would have gone on all of them if my schedule would have allowed.”

For Mellgren, both the classes and travel have provided something beyond education: a way to build a community in a relatively new hometown.

“It’s been a great way to meet people and learn more about the community that I didn’t know a lot about,” she says.

At the opposite end of the age spectrum is College for Kids, which dates to the 1980s and serves children ages 4-17. More than 600 young students participate annually in over 150 summer classes covering subjects including aviation, art, cooking, martial arts and music.

“Those classes are very popular,” Stevens says.

The department is also expanding its role in career training and regional workforce development. NMC is part of the Northern Michigan Attainable Collaborative, a 10-county initiative involving industry, education, government and philanthropic organizations.

The college received a three-year, $1.19 million state grant last year to work with Northwest Michigan Works and other partners on increasing the percentage of regional residents with a credential or degree to 60 percent by 2030.

“We want to be able to reach students wherever they are,” Stevens says. “We have the right people at the table to talk about the barriers adult students face, and how we can work together to mitigate those barriers.”

NMC’s Extended Education & Training program once peaked at close to 10,000 seats before participation fell sharply during the pandemic. It has steadily rebounded and now serves about 3,000 individual students annually, accounting for more than 4,700 total class seats when repeat students are included.

(Pictured above from left: EET student Julie Mellgren, Program Manager Dr. Christa Abdul-Martin, student Tom Obrecht and student and former instructor Kerry Kelly)