A Short History of FRCC...

1967 - A bill passed by the state legislature creates a State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education.

1968 - Front Range Community College (then the North Campus of the Community College of Denver) becomes the first creation of the State Board. The college is located at East 62nd Avenue and Downing Street in Denver.

1977 - The college moves to 112th Avenue in Westminster, near the crossroads of Adams, Boulder, and Jefferson counties.

1982 - Classes are offered at Longmont High School and other Longmont locations.

1983 - Classes are offered at a Boulder junior high school.

1984 - The North Campus of the Community College of Denver becomes Front Range Community College.

1985 - Front Range Community College becomes an autonomous college.

1988 - Larimer County Voc-Tech Center merges with Front Range Community College, becoming the Larimer Campus of FRCC. Even today, more than 400 high school students in Larimer County attend classes daily in 12 technical programs.

1990 - FRCC opens the Boulder Valmont Campus.

1995 - FRCC opens the Longmont Campus.

1996 - FRCC opens the North Boulder Campus, replacing the overcrowded Boulder Valmont Campus.

1997 - FRCC offers an A.A.S. degree in machining at the Rocky Mountain Manufacturing Academy. The academy is part of the Higher Education and Advanced Technology Center at the decommissioned Lowry Air Force Base in Aurora.

1998 - The Longmont Campus doubles in size, rounding out a building program that also created new student centers, libraries and state-of-the-art classrooms and computer facilities at Larimer and Westminster, as well as major improvements in technology, telecommunications, and science and computer laboratories at all campuses.

1999 - FRCC opens the Brighton Center. The Student Services area at Westminster is renovated.

2002 – Larimer Campus students, faculty and staff move into the newly renovated Mt. Antero and Blanca Peak building. The Boulder County Campuses open two new satellite sites, one in Boulder and one in Longmont, to accommodate growing enrollment.

2003 – The four FRCC sites in Boulder County are consolidated into one new Boulder County Campus that has more than double the space of the other locations combined. Stargazer Observatory opens, thanks to a unique partnership with Village Homes, developer of Observatory Village in southeast Fort Collins. "First light" -- when a star's light first found the mirror of the Celestron C-14 telescope -- was July 23.

2005 – Karen Reinertson becomes FRCC's sixth president. The Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning Program at Larimer moves to a larger space in the Community Learning Center in Loveland from space in north Fort Collins. HVAC joins Allied Health programs in the learning center. 

2008 -- Upon the retirement of President Reinertson, Michael Kupcho, vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer, is appointed to the additional position of interim chief administrative officer. The Westminster Campus enrolls 50 dropouts in Gateway to College, the first of an expected 325 students over three years. The campus is the 18th nationally and first in Colorado to replicate the program, thanks to a grant from the Gateway to College National Network.

2009 -- Andy Dorsey, who has served FRCC as an instructor, faculty member, dean, vice president, and chief academic officer, is appointed FRCC's seventh president. FRCC earned continued accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, a commission of the North Centeral Association of Colleges and Schools. A new and larger Brighton Center welcomes students in the spring semester at the Brighton Learning and Resource Campus. Architectural planning begins for a new science building at the Larimer Campus.