The project will address the shortage of advanced manufacturing technology workers in the Commonwealth by increasing efforts to recruit students into related fields of study; providing the students with mentors; and updating the middle school, high school and college technology curriculum.

Dr. Stan Komacek, chairperson of Cal U’s Department of Applied Engineering and Technology at California University, will work with Dr. Barry David from Millersville University to co-direct the endeavor.

The multi-year effort will seek to provide a pipeline of students studying advanced manufacturing technologies.

Project participants will also attempt to change the perception of manufacturing careers among students and their parents.

In southwestern Pennsylvania in particular, parents have discouraged their children from considering education programs leading to careers in manufacturing. Parents remember when the steel and coal industries were the predominant employers, and they remember the dramatic loss of jobs that later crippled the area. Those dramatic job losses happened more than a decade ago. Now, the workforce is ready to retire, and companies are realizing that future workers are not in the pipeline.

Today’s manufacturing jobs are not the traditional, dirty, assembly line-type positions of the past. They are high-tech/high-pay positions that require advanced knowledge and technological skills. For example, there is a manufacturing plant in Houston, Pa., that produces parts for artificial joints—elbows, knees and hips. The FDA can visit there anytime for inspection, and the production area must be pristine. Intellectually, the needs have changed as well.

In the past, a person who chose manufacturing was someone who was mechanically inclined. Today, manufacturing is high-tech, requiring high-level skills in computer applications and advanced math.

At Cal U, computers are integral to every aspect of our applied engineering and technology programs. Students learn to use CAD (computer-aided design/drafting), CNC (computernumerical control), CIM (computerintegrated manufacturing) automation/ robotics, rapid prototyping, parametric modeling, finite elements analysis, and reverse engineering— all of which are controlled by workers with computers.

While some of the current tools did not exist 10 years ago, today they are standard in industry and in education. The NSF grant speaks volumes about the quality of California University’s faculty and programs in advanced manufacturing technology.

Other goals of the program include: providing hands-on experiential learning for students in advanced manufacturing education; establishing mentoring/networking opportunities for underrepresented students in manufacturing education programs; and promoting and marketing dual enrollment, advanced standing and articulation agreements for manufacturing education.

Cal U and Millersville will work with the Community College of Allegheny County, Harrisburg Area Community College, and with middle and high school vo-tech feeder programs such as Steel Center Career/Technology High School and Lancaster Career/Technology High School. Other project partners include the Advanced Manufacturing Career Collaborative, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Catalyst Connection, Hamill Manufacturing Company, MANTEC, the Susquehanna Valley Advanced Manufacturing Alliance, Team PA, Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board, Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.