PARK FOREST – Interest about careers in precision manufacturing is building among Rich Township High School students in Chicago’s southern suburbs, and TMA’s Education Foundation wants to encourage the great work Metals Instructor Mike Wilson is doing with his students.
The Foundation awarded $5,580 this week to Rich East to add Acu-Rite Digital Readouts (DROs) to all the department’s mills and lathes.
Wilson says the number of students in the schools precision machining classes have been multiplying over the past few years.
“The first year we had 16 students with six earning their NIMS credentials. We had five of them get local job offers,” Wilson said. “Last year we had 40 students with 13 earning NIMS credentials and many local job placements including some 4 year scholarships.
This year Rich Township High School has five classes with average of 13 students in each. We have expanded the program to our other schools.
“We are still trying to get the Metals 2 (Advanced Precision Manufacturing) class going but we keep getting classes full of seniors,” Wilson said. “This year we have the most juniors and younger.”
TMA representative Sandy Sempowicz was on hand to present the Education Foundation check. It happened that NIMs certification testing was going on in one of the classes.
