Scholarships can mean much more than financial support, says Kyle Riegel, recipient of the 2008 SME Education Foundation Family Scholarship. Kyle is a field sales engineer with Schunk Carbon Technology in Iowa. A 2008 graduate of Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, Kyle currently serves on their engineering board.
The SME PRIME program at Anna High School prepares students for roles at manufacturing partner Honda of America Manufacturing with online learning manufacturing education courses like basic safety, measurement, robotics and quality control. The online learning is supplemented with hands-on training on precision measurement instruments and a FANUC robotic arm.
Receiving the SME Education Foundation Family Scholarship has played a huge part in the life and career of Erin Manthey, an applied math instructor in the welding program at Dakota County Technical College (DCTC) in Minnesota. With the help of the scholarship, Manthey attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in manufacturing engineering while minoring in math.
Anna Hiszpanski has made a name for herself as a research scientist in the materials science division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, but she’s never forgotten the help she got along the way — including the SME Education Foundation Family Scholarship, which she used for her undergraduate studies at Caltech.
The Arconic Foundation donated $25,000 to the SME Education Foundation’s COVID-19 campaign. Donations to the campaign will ensure that online learning provided by Tooling U-SME becomes available to thousands of high school students in 12 manufacturing disciplines, including additive manufacturing, mechatronics and smart manufacturing.
Pine Bush High School experienced "the highest of highs" after launching their SME PRIME Program. A day later, the school shut down due to the COVID pandemic. The school is making the most of opportunity and using their manufacturing equipment to produce face shields for frontline workers while also continuing to educate students through online courses.
Career and technical education students at SME PRIME® high schools in Michigan, Illinois, and New York have experienced firsthand the importance of manufacturing to our nation and the world — and how their classroom studies and hands-on lab work relate to real-world challenges, and can even save lives during the coronavirus pandemic.
Wheeling High School prepares its students to be innovative and productive leaders in STEM. The students involved in the SME PRIME initiative relate classwork to real-life by experiencing manufacturing up-close during their experience at the FABTECH student summit.
Worcester Technical High School’s advanced manufacturing department acquired new equipment and established credentials that aligned with curriculum frameworks with funding from SME PRIME.
The 2020 SME Education Foundation Board of Directors have taken office. The governing body of the Foundation, the board is comprised of leaders from industry and academia.