Shoreline Community College was recently awarded a $613,983 grant from the Department of Labor’s H-1B TechHire Partnership Grant, a federal initiative aimed at boosting high-tech job training programs.
Shoreline’s award falls under the umbrella of a 3.8-million-dollar grant project known as MechaWA, led by Everett Community College, to introduce currently unemployed young adults (ages 17-29) to opportunities in the aerospace industry. Shoreline’s sub-award will provide more than 100 students with training and career navigation in order to ensure they obtain full-time work upon completion.
Collectively, the lead college and its sub-recipients will train hundreds of students in mechatronics over the next four years so that they may enter related careers in advanced manufacturing. Mechatronics combines mechanics and electronics to repair and maintain advanced manufacturing equipment that uses robotics, hydraulics and pneumatics, programmable logic controllers, and complex electronic and mechanical systems.
“This program will offer another great opportunity for our students in the manufacturing industry,” said Jeff Purdy, Manufacturing Instructor at Shoreline. “Particular focus at Shoreline will be on providing training and employment services for young adults who are unemployed, as well as incumbent workers in need of updated training. This funding will help us serve a significant number of students and get them into the workforce with top-notch skills needed to excel in this growing and exciting industry.”
The project will help Shoreline to purchase equipment necessary for implementing a comprehensive mechatronics curriculum, as well as enable Shoreline’s manufacturing faculty to participate in intensive mechatronics curriculum training and professional development activities so that mechatronics courses developed by this grant align with industry standards.
“We are very excited to partner with this group of colleges to meet the needs of manufacturing students and employers in the Pacific Northwest,” said Lauren Hadley, Acting Director, Manufacturing Programs at Shoreline Community College. “Employers already seek our students out, now they’ll be banging down the door.”
Other colleges receiving sub-awards under the MechaWA consortium include North Seattle Community College, South Seattle College, and Renton Technical College.
Learn more about Shoreline’s Manufacturing program here.