Campus News

Calhoun Community College is excited to announce its advanced manufacturing team has been named among the final four teams to compete in Project MFG’s National Advanced Manufacturing Championship and will also be featured in the reality web series, Clash of Trades.

According to Project MFG, schools from across the nation competed in a challenging season of Project MFG’s Integrated Advanced Manufacturing Competition series. These competitions aim to change the perception of skilled trades and promote successful careers throughout the manufacturing industry. Manufacturing touches many aspects of our daily lives, which include transportation, medical, technology, and defense to name a few. These critical industries are facing a huge shortage in not only workers who are interested in the career field, but individuals who possess the skills needed to perform the jobs, thus potentially leaving more than 2 million positions unfilled across the nation. The lack of interest and engagement from the younger generations is an important factor in that statistic, and Project MFG has created this nationally-recognized competition to change that perception.

“I can’t begin to explain how milestones such as these are testaments to the effectiveness of the advanced curriculum our technologies programs continue to produce for our students,” commented Tad Montgomery, Calhoun Technologies Instructor. “Our students continuously go the extra mile in learning all the vital components of their programs and use those skills to compete among the best of the best across the nation in these types of competitions. These platforms not only provide our students with real-life scenarios and teach them how to use the skills they’ve obtained in their programs, but also help us to improve our program training as well,” added Montgomery.

This past February, 16 teams competed in the regional rounds that took place at Calhoun Community College, Southwestern Illinois College and Wichita State University Technical College. Competing schools were faced with real-world scenarios and pressure tested to demonstrate the critical skills needed to succeed in modern advanced manufacturing. The teams were challenged to complete a project that consisted of machining multiple pieces on a 5-axis machine and welding a pressure vessel.

“Student teams who participate in these types of competitions give us hope, as we are watching the next generation of skilled trades professionals develop each time we make these types of events possible to attend,” said Montgomery.

The final four teams who will battle head-to-head for the National title are Calhoun Community College, Minnesota State College Southeast, Southwestern Illinois College, and Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. The competition will take place will be at the Greenville Technical College Center for Manufacturing Innovation Center on May 8-12, 2023, in Greenville, South Carolina.

To see more about Project MFG and its competitions, you can follow them on YouTube, where they also showcase some of their previous competitions and the reality series Clash of Trades.

To learn more about Calhoun’s technologies programs and the competitions they participate in, visit www.calhoun.edu/technologies.

More about Project MFG

Project MFG shines a light on the need and opportunities for skilled trades by focusing on the development of new talent to provide a path forward for individuals and our country. Project MFG competitions throughout the United States help promote skilled trades across various industries as well as assist in advancing the next generation of highly skilled trade professionals. As an integrated workforce development and recruitment effort, Project MFG collaborates across communities, the private sector, and government to expand the US industrial base workforce. Project MFG is a program of the Global Learning Accelerator Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit, partially funded by the Department of Defense, and operated and managed by RD Solutions.