Perdue appoints Michael Vollmer to head technical and adult education

<p>Gov. Sonny Perdue has appointed Michael Vollmer, president of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, to take over the Department of Technical and Adult Education.</p><p>It is the fourth time that Vollmer, 54, has been chosen to by a Georgia governor to start up or run a high-profile operation.</p><p>He helped direct the state's anti-drug crusade, starting under former Gov. Joe Frank Harris, in the 1980s and early 1990s. Former Gov. Zell Miller picked Vollmer to run both the HOPE scholarship and the pre-kindergarten programs in the mid-1990s.</p><p>After Vollmer served as interim president of Clayton College & State University, Gov. Roy Barnes chose him in 2000 to serve as the first director of the Office of Education Accountability.</p><p>Vollmer has been president of ABAC since 2001. Last year, he served on the HOPE Study Commission that examined ways to help the scholarship program avoid financial troubles.</p><p>Beginning Oct. 1, Vollmer will replace technical education Commissioner Ken Breeden, who recently retired. Breeden had run the system since the mid-1980s, seeing enrollment in the schools grow to almost 100,000 students by last fall.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x2866220)</p>