I love this head line! Many middle schools, high school and college students can already relate to this! First Robotics clubs and classes are enticing our children into fascinating hands on projects that engage them into considering careers into aerospace engineering, biomedical, designing, 3D modeling, anything their innovative minds can conjure up! This is an exciting time for innovation, but will our education system be able to offer these courses with the continued budget cuts? We need these projects in our schools! They provide real-time, real world hands on applications that help our students problem solve, use applied mathematics skills, develop teamwork principles, and the list goes on! My friend and great teacher Michael Werner out at Granite Falls High School is attending the Pacific NW Informal Educator Training this week to learn more about WaterBotics! Check them out on Facebook if you have an account. Great pictures! To learn more about Digital Manufacturing’s Report on The Robots are coming follow this link! http://www.digitalmanufacturingreport.com/dmr/2012-01-24/the_robots_are_coming.html
January 25, 2012
The Robots are Coming!
January 24, 2012
Wonder why we are losing jobs to China???
People flooded Foxconn Technology with résumés at a 2010 job fair in Henan Province, China.
Here is a rather interesting article that just came out in the New York Times January 21st! I would be interested in your feedback!
“Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked. “ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
December 10, 2011
Center of Excellence for Aerospace and Advanced Manufacturing Launches New Website
EVERETT, Wash. – The Center of Excellence for Aerospace and Advanced Manufacturing has launched a new website, www.a2m2.net.
“Our organization’s focus has become more solidified and our relationships with industry and education more disciplined since the design of our last website, therefore a new website that featured our strong relationships was critical to our operation,” said Mary Kaye Bredeson, director of the Center.
The site is a resource for businesses in aerospace and advanced materials manufacturing and the state’s 34 community and technical colleges. The website also includes information about workforce development in Washington state.
The Center will use the website to continue to communicate about advancements in education and industry in the aerospace and advanced manufacturing fields. The Center’s advisory board, which includes industry experts throughout Washington, is also listed on the website.
The site was developed by Switch Up Web in Spokane, Washington.
The website will continue to grow with enhanced posting of aerospace and advanced manufacturing curriculum in 2012.
April 9, 2011
Shell Eco-Marathon Challenge
The Center of Excellence for Aerospace and Advanced Materials Manufacturing (A2M2) is once again a PROUD sponsor of the Granite Falls High School Urban Race Team. Under the direction of a wonderful manufacturing teacher, Michael Werner, these kids are going to Houston to race in the Shell Eco-marathon! The CoE for A2M2 recognizes the importance and value of hands-on project based programs that bring teaching and learning to such a culminating experience that has relevance to these students! Learn more about the Shell Eco-Marathon by clicking the below link! Congratulations Granite Falls and we will be rooting for you all!
The Shell Eco-marathon challenges high school and college student teams from around the world to design, build and test energy efficient vehicles. With annual events in the Americas, Europe and Asia, the winners are the teams that go the farthest distance using the least amount of energy. http://www.shell.com/home/content/ecomarathon/social_media_hub/
March 27, 2011
Mother Daughter TEA
It was a great turnout for another annual Mother Daughter TEA (Technology, Engineering, Aptitude) sponsored by the Centers of Excellence for Aerospace and Advanced Materials Manufacturing (Everett Community College) and the Co E for Marine Manufacturing Technology (Skagit Valley College). This year’s event was held at the Shell Oil Plant, Puget Sound Refinery in Anacortes on Saturday, March 26th! Thanks to Ann Avary, CoE Director, and Kim Davis Tech Prep Director, from Skagit Valley College and the staff from Shell Oil for organizing this year’s event. Our friend Sam Samano from Workforce Development Council, Snohomish County, was there to participate as well and were we ever glad she did! She brought joy and laughter along with being a wonderful mentor to the local “Migrant Girls Club”! Our Keynote guest speaker and Bio-Medical Engineer, Celeste Baine, knows how to engage the girls and their moms and was there to promote careers and pathways in the engineering world that many of them have never considered or been made aware of! Everyone has fun learning about engineers by doing hands on activities that explains and demonstrates that being an engineer is a viable option for all of them! As Sam said, “Makes you want to go to school all over again!”
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June 25, 2010
Washington Business Week- “Get AMPT” Manufacturing Week at Gonzaga!
Hi there!
I am excited for the upcoming “Get AMPT” week at Gonzaga University, July 11-17 2010. Parents, check out this video about the wonderful careers in Advanced Materials Manufacturing, whether it is in Aerospace, Marine or Process Control Technology! http://www.a2m2.net/students/ click on the video.
To give your kids a head start, why not consider sending them to a week of fun and learning in careers in Manufacturing. If you have been reading my blog, you know by now that Manufacturing in the US is not DEAD! It is still the backbone of our country! Washington Business Week has been putting on these business camps for kids for several years now all over the state and they are expanding. Testimonies from high school kids that have attended past camps make all the work, prep and curriculum design all worthwhile when you hear about their experiences!
The Centers of Excellence for Aerospace, Marine, & Process Control Technology are just some of the sponsors this year for Get AMPT! The Boeing Company is another huge sponsor of this year’s manufacturing week, but also sponsor other WBW Summer Camps. I am guessing they feel it is important, just like us at the community and technical colleges to expose kids to all kinds of great career pathways! Get them while they can still make choices! Students, parents, check it out, there is still time to contact WBW.org and sign your child up.
Learn more about how to build a career in aerospace, marine, or process technology
Get AMPT!
July 11-17, 2010
Gonzaga University
wbw.org
Contact:
Stephen Hyer | Executive Director
Foundation for Private Enterprise Education
Washington Business Week 33305 1st Way S, Ste B-212 | Federal Way, WA 98003
253-815-6900 | 360-701-3424 Cell |www.wbw.org | Steve@wbw.org
June 8, 2010
Road Trip to Big Bend Community College and Aviation Programs
I am ready to take it up for a flight!
Last Thursday, I, Laura Hopkins, Director for AJAC (Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Council) and Kevin Quinn, Program Specialist from Spokane AJAC traveled to Moses Lake to meet with Dr. Bill Bonaudi, President of Big Bend Community College. We had a great discussion with regards to moving forward in aligning all the A & P Community College FAA Part 147 Curriculum. This will be a huge step forward in looking at common course numbering and modularization of these courses. It will provide ease in transferability for students and will allow students to select the courses they need for their particular job requirements in aerospace mechanics. All five of Washington States A & P (Airframe & Power Plant) FAA licensed facilities through the Community & Technical College system offer robust, state of the art curriculum. We are being told that there is and will be in the near future high demand for FAA certified mechanics for the aerospace industry. Once students have their certificate and pass the FAA testing process they qualify for a number of job opportunities with great wages. Check out the CoE website under training programs and check out the AMT schools!
A special thanks goes out to Erik Borg and Dan Moore faculty members at Big Bend’s Aviation Maintenance Technology Center for showing us around their facility! I especially liked the Boeing 727! You have a great facility!
Sitting in the Cockpit of the 727! What an experience!
May 24, 2010
Aviation- the demand is there for jobs NOW and in the future!
Sunday’s Everett Herald had two great articles about the need to ramp up training and education for people young and old enterning into the world of aerospace and avaition! Washington State has currently more jobs in Aerospace than any other in the nation. But watch out! There are US states trying to whoo our aerospace partners away! Parents, students, high school counselors, you need to know this! We need to get this information about great careers in aviation to filter down to our young people. Why? The demand is there, and it will continue to be. Manufacturing technology has changed for the better. This is not your fathers manufacturing world. It is more like Star Wars meets the Advanced manufacturing World. What with new materials and techniques, robotics, and numeric computers that now cut out the tooling; it takes a skilled worker to do the programming!
Gone are the dirty greasy jobs. These are jobs that take a skilled and trained workforce that just about anyone can learn if they have the desire! Yes, these skills do reguire basic math, written, presentation and communitcaton skills – but we are talking about the basics! Physics is running in the background, geometry and trig are running in the background… the software programs are programmed, all you need to do is learn how to operate it.
Brian Hill (left) and mentor Tim Johnson prepare to make a small wing repair on a fastener in the 777 wing inside the Everett plant.
I have seen so many times young people learning these CNC programs. Catia. Solidworks, 3 d CAD programs that are so amazed at what they can do, that their natural curiousity wants to learn more. They feel successful at skills that they thought were unreachable! Now, they are ready to tackle on more, learn more and educate themselves! Why, because it has relevance! Now they know what they need to learn and how to get there!
Read the first article – Demand for aviation mechanics is already high — and expected to increase and then the second one… I promise you will learn something! Too few engineers to meet Boeing’s need
Please contact me- Center of Excellence for Aerospace and Advanced Materials Manufacturing if you need to get more information about Everett Community Colleges Aviation Maintenance Program (or information on any of the four other AMT Schools in Washington State !
Great training, great jobs at the end!
May 13, 2010
Washington Aerospace Scholars
I had a great visit today with Melissa Edwards, Washington Aerospace Scholars Administrator. The Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) is an educational program for high school juniors from across Washington State. The Museum of Flight hosts each week long summer residency experience during which the students are mentored by professional engineers and educators as they design a human mission to Mars. The cost is FREE to the participants! Can you believe it? Thanks to the Washington Aerospace Scholars Foundation this program is offered at no cost to the students! The purpose of the program is to increase the number of Washington State students who choose to major in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics! How great is that? We all know the dismal numbers… we are lacking qualified graduates in these fields and this is a great concern. According to Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, CEO of the The Museum of Flight it “impacts the creativity, productivity, and economic well-being of the nation.”
To learn more and possibly it could be you, or your son or daughter who applies next year, visit their website today! Washington Aerospace Scholars
April 27, 2010
The Shell Eco-Marathon Race
The Shell Eco-marathon challenges high school and college student teams from around the world to design, build and test energy efficient vehicles. With annual events in the Americas, Europe and Asia, the winner is the team that goes the furthest distance using the least amount of energy. This event also affords an outstanding engagement opportunity for current and future leaders who are passionate about finding sustainable solutions to the world’s energy challenge. 
The Granite Falls high school girl’s team is the first all women team entered in the Shell Eco competition. This fact has caught the attention of Shell Oil International, and they are following their progress.
Professional oversight is provided by Granite Falls High School’s manufacturing instructor, Michael Werner. He is experienced in Formula race cars, antique airplane restoration and educating students in manual arts.
The girls of Granite Falls High School received the Carl Perkins Federal grant supporting women in non-traditional roles to build a Prototype diesel powered car.
Partnerships:
Urban Concept Car – Granite Falls HS Support for the Urban Concept Car team/project came from a WA State Grant for “Future High Demand Professions”. Our major sponsorship is from the Centers of Excellence for Aerospace and Advanced Materials Manufacturing.
To learn more about the race and follow them in Houston, read their blog at: http://live.gfalls.wednet.edu/ecoteam/
