People You Need to Know: Hal Higdon

Q&A | JAN. 20, 2026

WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW HAL HIGDON

Amid an uptick in enrollment and several recent facility investments, the leader of Ozarks Technical Community College reaches 20 years on the job this summer.

Position: Chancellor, Ozarks Technical Community College

Age: 64

Education: Master’s and doctorate in higher education, University of Southern Mississippi, and bachelor’s in business, University of Alabama

Career: Vice president for administration, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College; director of human resources, Faulkner State Community College

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Next summer, Ozarks Technical Community College Chancellor Hal Higdon will hit a career milestone: 20 years as head of the higher education system.

Higdon, who also is the longest-serving public college and university leader in Missouri, took the helm from Norman Myers in 2006. He’s just the second person to lead the school in its 35-year history.

“It feels like 10 [years],” Higdon says of his tenure in Springfield. “You’re busy and next thing you know, five years, 10 years has gone by.”

It remains a busy time for Higdon at Ozarks Tech, which in June opened its $13.2 million, 29,065-square-foot Roy Blunt Aviation Training Center in Springfield, followed in August by a $5 million, 19,600-square-foot Technical Training Center at the school’s Richwood Valley campus located between Ozark and Nixa. The former facility houses the college’s new airframe and powerplant program, while the latter serves as the primary training site for its agriculture and electrical distribution systems programs.

Higdon says the new facilities, which both received state and federal funding, meet needs to serve both its students and community.

“One of the things that I had found in working in higher ed is a successful community college is in touch with the needs of the community,” he says, noting Ozarks Tech has also in recent years expanded or added programs such as electrical, manufacturing, plumbing and health care based on industry requests. “It’s really not a very complicated formula. Listen to what the community needs.”

The workforce at Ozarks Tech has increased over 27% to 700 employees since Higdon started, while enrollment is also on the uptick. He says the student count from last year increased about 5% in the fall and is trending to be up 6% in the spring.

“So, we’re up pretty substantially from last year,” he says. “We’ll serve between 15,000 and 16,000 unduplicated students this year between all of our campuses and centers.”

Those students will have a new building to frequent next fall that’s near Higdon’s office on the Springfield campus. The $48.5 million, 100,000-square-foot Michael L. Parson Student Union, named after the former governor, is under construction at Chestnut Expressway and Sherman Avenue. The state budget signed in June 2024 by Parson included $46 million toward building the center.

“It’s on time, on budget,” Higdon says of the estimated summer 2026 completion.

While no plans are on the horizon, he says the growth of building trades such as automotive, plumbing and welding will likely require erecting a construction trades facility – a project that would likely require voter support.

Additionally, Ozarks Tech is designing more parking options for future consideration.

“We’ve got to put more parking into the north,” Higdon says. “We’re even considering a parking garage, which I’ve resisted because they’re expensive, but we’re running out of property. Either you go out or up.”

A native of Decatur, Alabama, Higdon has called the Queen City home for nearly two decades and says he has no plans to leave. He estimates retirement is still another five or six years off.

“I never ever really considered leaving,” he says. “I had several opportunities where I was contacted about bigger jobs, and we were always in the middle of building something, in the middle of a tax levy, and it just never felt right to leave. After 20 years now, I’ll probably retire from here if the board will keep me.”