THE BEST WAY TO DESCRIBE what Craig McDaniel, apparently now moving on to conquer the world, has meant to Northwest Georgia in general and Greater Rome in particular is to say that without him Georgia Northwestern Technical College would likely still be known as Coosa Valley Tech.

President of what is now the state’s largest multi-campus technical college, McDaniel has led the fast-expanding school since 1998 but actually has been involved in it pretty much his entire career. His notable ability to anticipate new career opportunities for the state’s workforce and then add programs to train students for arriving jobs has been remarkable. He reacts fast, an approach probably learned when he was one of the original implementers of the QuickStart program, still the state’s pride and joy when it comes to luring and winning major new enterprises.

Listing everything successfully added at the college during his time there would take considerably longer than reciting what it offered and had before his time at the reins began.

McDaniel will need all that energy, and then some, in his new role as assistant commissioner for the state tech system’s International Center seeking to help other nations enhance their own tech education and workforce skill levels. It is pretty hard to imagine a place more different from Northwest Georgia than Saudi Arabia, the apparent main target for McDaniel’s redirected efforts — and that means a lot more than green and water-soaked versus sandy brown and dry.

On the other hand, it makes no sense to wish him good luck in his new efforts. Anybody who knows McDaniel knows he doesn’t rely on luck to get the job done.