CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE’S CHANCELLOR AWARD

College of the Canyons
Manufacturing Education Center Project

On April 20, 1999, College of the Canyons Center for Applied Competitive Technologies received the prestigious Chancellor's Office Award for Outstanding Business Partnership with Aerospace Dyanamics International Inc. (ADI). ADI, based in Valencia California is a major supplier to the aerospace industry. ADI has been instrumental in leading local manufacturers to support College of the Canyons' efforts to develop a world class educational program to prepare high technology workers in advanced metal machining, Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided manufacturing technologies.

Beginning in July 1997, ADI and College of the Canyons began a partnership to address local employers requests for a broader pool of qualified manufacturing technologies trained in emerging new technologies and manufacturing processes. Nationwide, there is a shortage of trained manufacturing workers skilled in new design technologies, computer-aided manufacturing processes, and problem-solving/critical thinking skills. This shortage of trained operators, engineers, and other manufacturing professionals has negatively impacted employers, machine equipment manufactures and software development vendors including IBM and others.

ADI spearheaded an effort to work collaboratively with employers, the college and equipment/software vendors to develop an educational program to address this issue.

Since its first meeting in July 1997, the project team has worked on four major goals:

1. Establish a strong manufacturing consortium of employers, educators and government agencies to develop an industry-based manufacturing technology education center in the Santa Clarita Valley.
2. Secure resources and funds needed to implement a manufacturing education facility within the Santa Clarita Valley.
3. Develop training and education programs that will prepare new workers for manufacturing jobs in the Santa Clarita Valley and upgrade the skills of existing workers in the region.
4. Continuously improve training and education programs to ensure that trainees learn "best practices" manufacturing techniques on modern, state of the art equipment from qualified instructors with industry experience.

The project resulted in the establishment of a Manufacturing Education Center established in the Valencia Industrial Park with CNC Machine and twenty-one station CATIA lab. Additional resources were secured at the federal, state and local level including competitive grant awards from the California Community College system and the US Department of Education, as well as funding from the City of Santa Clarita. Since its unveiling in January 1998, the project added a 21 station CAD/CAM lab to teach SurfCAM, a CNC lathe, and other teaching resources.

ADI's support has been critical to the success of this project. ADI has provided approximately 2500 square feet of space to the College so that credit-bearing classes could be conducted on-site in the local industrial park.

In addition, ADI researched the possibility of reallocating use taxes paid by ADI on the purchase of capital equipment from out-of-state manufacturers. ADI learned of a new law that allowed companies to designate where the use taxes were deposited. ADI researched its past purchases and its projected purchasing, then approached the City of Santa Clarita about designating the use tax proceeds to go to the City's fund rather than to Los Angeles County. ADI requested that as part of its efforts to reallocate funds to the City, that the City support the Manufacturing Education project. The City Council voted unanimously to donate 50% of ADI's use tax proceeds ($150,000.00) to College of the Canyons. The College received $75,000 from the City of Santa Clarita as a result.