Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1313710
20 SMT007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2020 We get students who come out debt-free with a job. That's a great way to exit college. We tell all of the students, "You're not taking a class. You are getting trained in some- thing that a company has said they need skilled workers for." Some of our classes are not all electronics. We offer classes on AutoCAD, SolidWorks, mechan- ical drafting, and GD&T. We teach them to make PCBs, but there are a lot of mechanical parts of those PCBs. Quality is important too. Our students get Yellow Belt/Six Sigma certified, as well as gain Lean manufacturing experience. Feinberg: Not only that, but they learn what is being dealt with by those in the same industry. Vanderford: This is something that every stu- dent goes through and that our local compa- nies have been really happy with. For instance, we were even contacted by a company in Bos- ton, Maryland, that wanted people who could wire bond, do photolithographic processing, and had SMT pick-and-place experience. Other companies have said, "We need 25 people trained up now. How can we do that?" They can send them over to LCCC and/or the Manufacturing Electronics and Rework Insti- tute for Training (MERIT). We will train them on the same SMT equipment. It's the same thing that our bachelor's degree students are getting in a shorter period of time. Rather than offer the traditional 16-week classes at the com- munity college level of $3,800 per year for full- time student tuition, we'll open up our doors and offer hands-on training with our equip- ment during daytime seminar hours, offering classes that will last 3–5 days with a custom- ized training fee. We'll put them on an SMT line and show them how to put solder paste down on a sten- cil. We'll show them how to clean up a stencil, ensure that the fiducials are clear, load feed- ers, program and do AOI, hand soldering, and hot air rework, as well as what will happen when a feeder is loaded incorrectly with the wrong part. That's what MERIT is going to be all about. The cost is going to be increased compared to the tuition because they're going to be pri- vate classes offered at a faster pace where someone could get potentially 24–36 hours of experience on a pick-and-place tool. But we've received requests from all over the U.S., includ- ing Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, and more. This could be for people who have worked slide line and want to work as an SMT oper- ator. Another case might be when a company hires a sales manager, but how many peo- ple with a sales degree know anything about PCBs? Not that many of them do when they first come out of college, but you send them to us, and we give them a crash course with hands-on experience, detailing what a PCB is and how it's manufactured. All of a sudden, they have an edge. Johnson: You've created a consistent onboard- ing training program for the employers. You have become their training department. Vanderford: That's what we want to become. As a community college, we train in skill sets. The students that we have in the MEMS pro- gram are usually working during the daytime. When they're done with classes, they come to Lorain County Community College students have access to the MEMS lab during evening hours as well, minimizing conflicts with their current jobs.