Northstate Grow Manufacturing Initiative (GMI)
Category: Workforce Programs
The Northstate Grow Manufacturing Initiative (GMI) sponsored by NoRTEC (Northern Rural Training and Employment Consortium) is a wonderful and growing workforce development tool in Tehama County and Northern California.
For Teachers:
GMI includes “Train the Trainer” three-day courses for local high school teachers, where instructors learn modern day manufacturing techniques like gcode and solid works. More Tehama County instructors have participated than any other county in Northern California. Teachers from every Tehama County high school have participated in this training. And all Tehama County High Schools have vertical machining centers. Which includes: Corning High School, Los Molinos High School, and Red Bluff High School.
Train the Trainer courses are held every summer with local high school teachers. They learn how to handwrite gcode, then take that file to a simulator to see if there are errors in the code the wrote. If not, teachers take that code to the vertical machining centers and plug in their thumb drive to cut a part using the code they wrote.
Educator Tours take local teachers on tours of area manufacturing facilities to allow them to see new processes that are driven by computers in bright modern warehouses. This helps instructors to see possible career paths available to their students, and why it is so important for local schools to invest in career technical education.
For Local Manufacturers:
The North State Manufacturing Directory and GMI provides opportunities for local manufacturers to connect with other local manufacturers looking to do business and use suppliers locally. Through GMI, local manufacturers can engage with students directly about career options in manufacturing. This helps manufacturing companies get directly involved in workforce development of potential future employees.
For Students:
The GMI “Student Shadow Program” allows students to shadow eight local manufacturers to see that manufacturing today is in brightly light hip work spaces and driven by technology. Participating manufacturing businesses create a job board showing typical work opportunities in their company, and students select companies based on their own interests. Students shadow one business in the morning and one in the afternoon. To ensure that students go into this opportunity with a certain base knowledge and commitment to the program, they are required to write a pre tour and a post tour paper.
GMI is growing and expanding throughout Northern California. And the Tehama County economic development program is excited to partner with them and promote their ever-growing work. In 2016 GMI spoke to students in Red Bluff High School’s traditional and adult education classes on using a Haas CNC Mill. Students toured local manufacturing facility Transfer Flow Inc., and saw a demonstration from Parallax Inc’s Ken Gracey on how drone’s work. Tehama County students attended the 3rd Annual Manufacturing Expo held at Chico State. Elementary students even got involved when students from Corning Elementary School created a stunning decoration for their school using donated materials and Transfer Flow Inc’s CNC laser machine.
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