Building an Integrated Mfg Center to Fill the Skills Gap

“We receive overwhelming requests from employers who want to hire our students. Our students know there are immediate jobs waiting for them that come with good starting salaries,” says Bob Novak, Waukesha County Technical College, Associate Dean of Manufacturing. That is why WCTC is working to create a new Integrated Manufacturing Center (IMC) to provide innovative solutions to the skills gap crisis.

I've known Bob Novak of Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC) for a few years now, and have come to understand his mission and fully embrace his passion for the industry and the students he teaches. We've covered him and his program in MMT, and he's spoken a couple times at our amerimold expo on the industry's workforce challenges and how he and WCTC have faced them head on.

That is why I wanted to fill you in on WCTC's latest project. WCTC is working to create a new Integrated Manufacturing Center (IMC) to raise WCTC manufacturing programs to a new level and to provide innovative solutions to the skills gap crisis.

The center will be connected to the Industrial Building and will be home to several programs within the School of Applied Technologies. It will serve as the hub of manufacturing on campus, facilitating integrated learning for multiple disciplines and promote a spirit of collaboration among programs.

According to WCTC, the proposed 24,000-square-foot IMC will include: