[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNETTE PARKER: Josh, what are you setting up to run today?
JOSH: So right here is our program
that we went in the classroom and programmed on Master Cam.
ANNETTE PARKER: I used to have to trig out all my coordinates,
and write the code, and then I'd feed the tape into the machine
to make the cut.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
TEACHER: So let's just start it up.
All right.
ANNETTE PARKER: It's very exciting for me
to go down to the classroom.
TEACHER: And then it drips out.
So what's happening is we know that this switch is bad.
It's just an easy way to troubleshoot it.
ANNETTE PARKER: Technology is creating
more highly skilled jobs.
STUDENT: There will be a motor that will move the rod, which
will pull this up and down.
ANNETTE PARKER: Right.
The best place for our students to learn those skills--
STUDENT: So much problem solving.
ANNETTE PARKER: --Is through partnership
with community colleges.
MAN: So this is what I'd need you to do today.
ANNETTE PARKER: And industry partners
that show how that's applied in the workplace.
I know that as a community college President,
I need to invest in that.
MAN: So this conveyor, that conveyor.
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ANNETTE PARKER: South Central College
is one college with two campuses.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNETTE PARKER: They are two great communities
that drive our economy.
And so partnership with business and industry
is critical to the success of our students.
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DOUG LAVEN: In 2008, I left industry
to come to South Central College to start
the mechatronics program.
Mechatronics is the combination of a couple of disciplines,
mainly mechanical, electrical.
To kind build on what we did--
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ANNETTE PARKER: I see Doug as someone being out
on the forefront really trying to do innovative work.
DOUG LAVEN: Hello, Dr. Parker.
ANNETTE PARKER: Hey, Doug.
Nice to see you.
DOUG LAVEN: Nice to see you.
So when we talk about embarking on an NSF grant,
I feel that we are going to do something nationally with this.
I think there's a lot of eyes on this.
We don't even get the sentence out,
and she's, yes, go, start writing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DOUG LAVEN: The grant in 2013 with ATE
was designed around these trainers.
These panels tie right into different processes
in any production setting.
The impact that we have is the equipment that we're building
is very in line with what our industry partners do.
So when our industry partners said
this is what we're starting to experience on our production
floors, we've answered that call by making sure
that we can make that happen on our trainers.
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DOUG LAVEN: We treat this program as a business.
You're working in an industry where
you're responsible for multimillion dollar processes.
And the stuff that you learn on these little trainers,
you're seeing it come to life.
There's a lot of pride in that.
That's the ATE link, putting technicians back to work.
And we're doing that with this program.
[HORN HONKING]
ANNETTE PARKER: We see South Central College
as critical to our industry partners.
We've created that vision here in Southern Minnesota
that we're in this together.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GREG PACKER: SageGlass is paving the way
for showing what a small town can do when it
partners with a local college.
DARIO GARCIA: The main one was this one, right?
The program that I was doing
was the mechatronics program.
It deals a lot with machinery automation.
You understand a little bit of electrical and PLCs.
Got it onto the [INAUDIBLE]?
STUDENT: Vacuum lines are out the back.
GREG PACKER: We've partnered with South Central
to help some of our internal candidates
become maintenance personnel.
DARIO GARCIA: I started off as an operator,
started moving up to eventually Senior Process Technician.
DARIO GARCIA: These are team members
that came from production, and then learned maintenance.
To the mechatronics program, they're ready to go.
It feels great.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNETTE PARKER: And so as we were
trying to create a vision for the future, South Central
College and Faribault Public Schools
agreed that we together would address
the vision of excellence in education.
So we would create our own program
that's called H2C, High School to College to Career.
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DOUG LAVEN: We received another grant in 2020.
TEACHER: This is Doug Laven.
He's one of the gentlemen behind the scenes for mechatronics.
DOUG LAVEN: In the 2020 grant, we
were looking at taking what we had already
done, this time, however, focusing just on high schools.
Once you build that trainer, everything after that
are really just labs on that trainer.
DOUG LAVEN: We've selected five schools here in Minnesota,
and five schools in Nebraska.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DOUG LAVEN: A trainer like this in the hands of a student
who's on the fence, who doesn't think they could do this,
but then they do a few labs and they have success,
that's where I'm going.
Make sure when you put them in, they're
all kind of the same way.
My passion is in reaching students
who may not think they have that skill set to go out
and be successful in this type of industry.
STUDENT: Yeah, got it.
DOUG LAVEN: And I was that student.
I was not the STEM student in high school.
The minute I signed up a vocational class,
it changed me.
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ANNETTE PARKER: We are part of this community.
We're giving back to the community
by creating the future workforce.
We have some exciting work going with the National Science
Foundation that we would love to share.
The ATE mission, it can be bragged about,
because I think we're making the difference
in the lives of students.
And that's really, really exciting.
That's what drives me.
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