Program Stories

When Carlos Aleixo Domingues, now 23, was in high school in Porto Alegre, Brazil, he had no idea what the world of engineering looked like.

Trent Trout, computer integrated manufacturing instructor at Saline High School (SHS) — an SME PRIME (Partnership Response in Manufacturing Education) school — was taken aback recently when his former boss strode into his classroom followed by a group of cheering coworkers.

A partnership between the SME Education Foundation and Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF) is helping enrich the manufacturing talent pipeline by providing scholarships to neurodiverse students.

Training employees and customers on its products has always been an important part of the organizational ethos at Rollomatic, a Swiss-based manufacturer of precision grinding machines that was founded more than 30 years ago.

Natalia Esparragoza, a manufacturing engineer at the Jacksonville State University (Jax State) Center for Manufacturing Support in Jacksonville, Alabama, felt it was her calling to review scholarship applications for the SME Education Foundation.

Students at Proviso West High School, in Hillside, Illinois, have earned thousands of manufacturing certifications, taken top prizes at industry competitions and been placed into local apprenticeships since their school was awarded an SME PRIME® (Partnership Response in Manufacturing Education) program in early 2022.

One hundred students showed their passion for additive manufacturing while competing for prizes at the 2025 Additive Manufacturing Competition, held in Atlanta during the 61st annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in June.

Elijah Yates, a junior at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) in Cedar Falls, was awarded the SME Education Foundation’s 2025 Wayne F. Frost Directors Scholarship

Students, educators and attendees at RAPID + TCT, AeroDef Manufacturing and SME FUSION — held simultaneously in Detroit in April — got a glimpse into the future of advanced manufacturing technologies and industry-education collaboration.

Kai Collins, an 18-year-old student in the Pavlis Honors College at Michigan Technological University, joined the SME Bright Minds Student Mentorship Program — part of the SME Education Foundation’s Community of Scholars initiative — because he wanted to develop his networking skills.