Through Sinclair Community College, any young person who has dropped out of high school can call 512-FAST for help earning their diploma. Adults can find resources to prepare for the GED test through Project READ. And low-income first-generation college students can receive counseling through Upward Bound.

The programs are among those funded by grants at Sinclair. The college’s Grants Office has received more than $150 million in grants for 3,000 projects under the direction of Neil Herbkersman, who retired Friday after founding the office and running it for 26 years.

“I don’t see a single student, but everything I do is to help them,” Herbkersman said from his office in the Ponitz Center.

The grants impact the Miami Valley community from displaced workers to youth. In 2010-11, more than 2,400 high school drop outs ages 16 to 21 earned their diploma with assistance from the Fast Forward Center, which was established in 2001 and is made possible by $17.6 million in grant funding, according to Sinclair.

“It’s taking these kids off the streets and giving them hope,” Herbkersman said of the center.

A first-generation college graduate himself, Herbkersman also cites Upward Bound and Talent Search, funded by a $7.2 million grant with Dayton Public Schools, as impactful for students to get an education and avoid poverty.

“It just gives me goosebumps every time I think of that,” he said.

In the last decade, the Grants Office received a $5.6 million grant for the Miami Valley Tech Prep Consortium providing integration of secondary and postsecondary science, technology, engineering and math , or STEM, education in the region; a $9.9 million grant for the National Center for Manufacturing Education; $3.5 million for the National Center for Excellence in Supply Chain Technology; a $7.5 million grant for Project READ providing literacy coordination; and seven other projects addressing the needs of dislocated and incumbent workers, according to Sinclair.

Herbkersman’s grant proposals have been distributed nationally as best practices, and his office has been cited as a national benchmark for productivity with his storyboard Compression Planning method to track the 140 projects completed in a year.

“Neil is everything that’s right about what we do here. He is proof of what a difference a talented person can make,” said Sinclair spokesman Adam Murka.

Karla Hibbert-Jones, assistant director in the Grants Office, will replace Herbkersman.

“There is no one else like him,” said Sinclair President Steven Johnson. “If Neil works on a project, it’s going to be done right, and it’s going to be a win-win for all the partners involved.

“Over 26 years, there have literally been a couple hundred thousand students at Sinclair alone that have benefited from programs and grants that he has worked on,” he said. “It’s really incredible.”