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Sandia National Laboratories recently donated two cutting-edge manufacturing machines complete with full attachments to the advanced manufacturing and transportation program at Las Positas College.
The donation was part of a broader movement to adapt to the new economic challenges facing the United States.
“We are very grateful for our partnership with Sandia National Laboratories and their generous donation of CNC machines, which not only provides valuable cutting-edge equipment to our college but also aligns perfectly with our mission to equip students with the skills needed to succeed in today’s manufacturing industry,” said Las Positas President Dyrell Foster in a statement.
Chris Bergh, spearhead of the donation and Sandia manufacturing engineer, told Livermore Vine that the U.S. economy has departed from its traditional tendencies to build, create and fix. Presently, the economy is characterized by widgets and high-tech gadgets made cheaply and efficiently abroad, requiring no motherland substantial building techniques or human manufacturing intelligence, according to Bergh.
“As a country, we used to be innovators and producers,” Bergh said in an announcement from Sandia. “We don’t repair things anymore. It’s cheaper to buy the widget because it’s completely made than take it out and fix it. We were the industrial drivers of the world, and we’ve really gotten away from that, and other countries have seized that.”
This donation, according to Bergh, is a step in the right direction of reverting back to fundamental practices to ensure that the occupations will be geared to adapt with the changing times to establish an ultimately stronger, more centralized future.
“If you’re going to teach, you want to teach what’s happening in the real world,” Bergh said in the announcement. “This is going to give them the ability there, especially with such a well-known U.S. brand, to learn this machine and then translate into the real world much easier using those technologies.”
“The donation includes two Haas VF-2 computerized numeric controls and a coordinate measuring machine, along with all necessary attachments — tool holders, power transformers and trunnions. These state-of-the-art machines, valued at more than $220,000 if new, will allow students to gain hands-on experience in vertical machining and precision measurement,” Sandia officials said.
Bergh emphasized that generationally, younger people, like the students at Las Positas, will be the drivers of evolving with and boosting a national economy that aligns with modern technology.
“The younger generation is a new talent pool if you will,” he said.
“There is still a skill that is desperately needed, especially in the metrology world where inspecting parts is just as important as manufacturing the part,” Bergh added.
As such, the donation serves as an exciting step toward traditional hands-on learning promoting futures for the manufacturing industry.
“It’s very exciting once you get into the world and see what you can do. I myself, from 39 years in the business, all of the stuff I have been able to manufacture are from telecommunication to flat panel displays to parts in space to parts on other planets. It’s fascinating. It’s exciting,” Bergh said.
The recent donation of the machines was not the first collaborative effort between Las Positas and Sandia.
“We have a very deep and abiding collaboration with the college, dating back more than 20 years,” Michael Langey, corporate communications specialist at Sandia told Livermore Vine.
“When Sandia needed to develop cybersecurity experts, we turned to Las Positas students to recruit and train the first generation of experts. Our STEM Day for Girls on March 9 was held at Las Positas, which shares our commitment to developing the finest minds. We have been participants in the Tri-Valley Educational Collaborative for years. They host and partner with us for the Science Bowl and during their commencement this year, the college honored us with the Friend of the College Award.”
The advanced manufacturing and transportation program at Las Positas College is one of the first players in the Tri-Valley making significant strides in the education of manufacturing. Similar endeavors could help to revitalize the economy and generate the next greatest innovators.
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