Michele Cantwell-Copher, who's pictured here, has left her job as executive director of the State Center Community College District's fundraising foundation. State Center runs Fresno City College, and Cantwell-Copher's big job was rounding up several million dollars to help renovate the campus' Old Administration Building.

Cantwell-Copher started a new job July 1 with the Fresno County Office of Education. She's heading up the office's efforts to promote voluntary preschool in Fresno County. Cantwell-Copher said raising money in today's economy is a challenge, but it's not the reason she left the college district. She said working in K-12 education is her "career mission" and the new job gets her back to that. Before working at State Center, she was an administrator in the Central Unified School District.

Tom Crow, chancellor of State Center, said Deborah Bristol of Fresno is filling the fundraising job on an interim basis and that a permanent replacement is scheduled to be hired by mid-September. He doesn't believe fundraising will slow down in the meantime.

Cantwell-Copher said she's staying involved in the fundraising campaign as a volunteer: "I want to be there the day we open the doors of the Old Administration Building and give it, in a sense, back to the community." Renovation of the building -- first erected in the early 20th Century -- is scheduled to be finished in 2010.