By Ryan Spoehr - June 22th 2023

 

JANESVILLE

 Blackhawk Technical College plans to break ground on an addition to its current district office that will create a new space devoted exclusively to its manufacturing education program.

The college made the announcement Thursday at its central campus south of Janesville. The expansion was jump-started through a $7 million donation from the Blackhawk Foundation Board Tuesday.

The addition is pending approval by the Wisconsin Technical College System Board, when it meets in July. The entire price is to be determined through a bid process that has started, Blackhawk President Tracy Pierner told attendees at a Thursday press conference.

If approved, the construction could start as early as this fall and conclude in spring 2024.

The new space will be called the Innovative Manufacturing Education Center, or I-MEC. Following the sale of the manufacturing education building in Milton to KANDU Industries, the college will still have classes there, but will slowly transition more to the main campus over the next year.

I-MEC will be about 42,000 square feet, which will be a combination of the current district office and the planned addition. I-MEC will house classes for automation systems technology, computer numeric control, electro-mechanical technology, industrial maintenance mechanic, manufacturing engineering technology, welding and manufacturing and HVAC-R (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration.)

Blackhawk Foundation Board President Dave Holterman termed the monetary gift and the upcoming building a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.” He said in the eight years he has been on the board, monetary gifts have been to help the student body in some way, but this “goes beyond that.”

“It will support a collaboration with our industry partners and faculty. It will ensure that these students will be equipped with the skills and the training needed to fulfill the workforce challenges that the manufacturing sector is facing right now,” Holterman said.

College officials say the plans are part of an initiative that they are calling Manufacturing the Next Generation of Skilled Talent.

According to Blackhawk, the manufacturing industry in Rock and Green counties generated $1.9 billion in 2021 and there are 250 manufacturing companies in the two counties.

Greg Phillips, the dean of manufacturing, apprenticeship, technology and transportation, said taking care of students is the most important task at the college, and putting all of the areas of study for manufacturing in one place will help students. The new facility will create a “much more work-based learning environment.”

Right now, the areas of studies are “siloed” off, in part at the Milton campus and some are spread out at the central campus.

“So when students come into this lab, they are coming to a manufacturing facility to work. We will still have classroom lectures and theoreticals and things like that, but students in welding will be intermixing with students in computer numeric control who will be working with students in engineering,” Phillips said.

Having all the manufacturing classes at the central campus allows students to be at the college with other students, not at a distance in Milton, he said.

“Students will be here at the new facility, registration is going to be right here. Student services is going to be right there. Student life is going to be so much more enriched for them because they are with all the other programs,” Phillips said.

The district office operations will be relocated to another location yet to be determined on the central campus.

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