PENDLETON — Mark Browning still was selling radio ads in Idaho when he received a piece of advice that stuck with him.

He was chatting up the owner of a local grocery chain when the man asked Browning about his college plans. Browning, in his early 20s at the time, responded with a cliche about how those that can’t do attend school instead. Browning’s remarks prompted the man to turn from the shelves he was stocking and deliver some impromptu advice.

“And he said, ‘The school of hard knocks is the most expensive tuition you’ll ever pay,’” Browning recalled. “It took me a number of years to figure that out.”

It was one of the many stories Browning, 59, told over the course of two interviews during his first week as the president of Blue Mountain Community College. A former newscaster and television anchor, Browning considers storytelling to be one of his primary roles as BMCC’s chief executive.

Browning will be expected lead the college out of one of its most difficult chapters, as declining enrollment, the COVID-19 pandemic and dozens of layoffs all have hit BMCC hard over the past year-and-a-half.

But Browning said he thinks BMCC still has a story to tell.

Continuing education

Browning grew up in Stevensville, Montana, a small town less than 30 miles south of Missoula, on a family farm while his parents ran a hardware store and lumber yard. Browning described his early childhood in idyllic terms.

“Growing up in the Bitterroot Valley, we hiked, camped, fished and ran around on motorcycles,” he said. “We didn’t know how good we had it. We worked hard and played hard.”

Browning’s family moved to Idaho when he still was in high school, the state where he would complete his first career track and get a start on a second.

Setting aside the advice from the grocer, Browning translated his early start in radio into a career in television, eventually becoming an anchor and news director for local Boise TV stations. Once content to climb the TV news ladder, Browning realized if he wanted to advance career outside the bounds of broadcast journalism, he would need a degree. So at age 39, Browning enrolled as a freshman at Idaho State University.

After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in mass communications, Browning went from covering Idaho government to joining it as the chief communications and legislative officer for the Idaho State Board of Education. Browning entered the world of community college administration under the recommendation of a board member he worked with, who told him to take a look at a vice president of communications position at North Idaho College.

A move to Coeur d’Alene followed, and up until that point, most of Browning’s work had come in the specialized field of communications. When the president of North Idaho College suggested he would make a good college president, Browning initially dismissed it.

“I just thought that was the worst thing in the world,” Browning said. “And then we really started talking about what the role of the president is and what the president does. I started to look at it through a different lens of the kind of work that I really enjoyed doing, which is in the community, and storytelling. I started to think back on all the roles I’ve had, from morning radio, to television anchor and reporter to the state board office. It really is about telling or finding someone’s story, and then telling it or telling the story of the agency I was with, the college I was with. That really is the ultimate extension of (the job) is to be the lead storyteller for that institution.

In 2016, Browning took on a new role as an administrator at the College of Western Idaho, a community college established in 2009 in Nampa to serve Boise’s rapidly growing suburbs. In the meantime, he continued to advance his education, obtaining a master’s degree from the University of Idaho and enrolling in a doctorate program at Idaho State.

Two hundred miles away in Pendleton, the BMCC president positions wasn’t expected to open for some time. In March 2019, Blue Mountain hired veteran college administrator Dennis Bailey-Fougnier to lead the college. But in February, Bailey-Fougnier abruptly resigned, citing ongoing health issues. For the second time in three years, BMCC was in need of a president.

From his perch in Idaho, Browning liked the idea of moving back to small town life in Pendleton. He applied, and after learning he had locked down an interview, he was ecstatic. But BMCC’s interest in Browning didn’t end with an interview, with the college’s board of education announcing his hiring in June. His first day on the job was Tuesday, Sept. 7.

The future of BMCC

Browning emerged from a field of finalists with more traditional backgrounds. Two finalists had been presidents and some could pitch themselves as more reflective of the college’s diversifying student body.

But what stood out to Jane Hill, the chair of the BMCC board at the time of his hiring, was his ability to score high with all of the college’s various constituencies.

“There’s no formula for hiring the perfect candidate,” she said. “There’s so many variables that matter. He had that combination of qualities that made employees feel confident and at ease. And that made the board feel like this guy has a sense of not only the range of things that need to be done, but what’s important among them.”

Pete Hernberg, the president of the faculty union, said he was initially skeptical of Browning’s candidacy after looking over his resume and seeing a lack of classroom experience. But he was won over after Browning spoke with instructors and offered specific solutions to the college’s challenges.

Browning takes over a very different college than the institution managed by his predecessors. From 2012 to 2020, BMCC enrollment fell from 4,142 to 1,561. The downward trend was supercharged by the pandemic, but the college already had been struggling with the effects of a strong economy and increasing competition from Walla Walla Community College, Columbia Basin College in Pasco and Baker Technical Institute.

The resulting loss in revenue led to the college eliminating 23 positions in 2020 under Bailey-Fougnier and another 16 in 2021, some of those cuts coming under the protests of staff. All of these developments are happening as the demographics of Blue Mountain are shifting. As Latinos make up a larger share of the student body, the college is beginning to discuss if its staff and services are reflective of that.

Browning said BMCC is not only competing with other colleges for students but an economy where people can get a well-paid job without the benefit of a college education. One of his first priorities will be to stanch the enrollment bleed. He said his hope is to have fall enrollment not drop any more than 1 or 2%.

Browning just closed on a house in Pendleton as he and his wife Kym get settled in Eastern Oregon while his three adult sons are scattered across Utah and Washington. He still loves to hike, fish and camp, and he and Kym already are making a mental list of all the outdoor opportunities in the region they’d like to take advantage of in the coming years.

Browning said his job as president will be to acknowledge the challenges that lie ahead while projecting optimism in Blue Mountain Community College’s future.

“Everybody says, ‘What’s your biggest challenge right now,’ and I think it is to help people understand that you’ve been through hell, and we’re not at the end yet,” he said. “But I believe we’ve got a structure and the sizing in place that makes us sustainable for the amount of enrollment that we’ve got. And that we’re gonna get through it together.”