AUBURN, N.Y. — Community colleges in New York and Michigan are taking steps to fill the need for training of students toward careers in the plastics industry.
Cayuga Community College of Auburn, N.Y., is working with a $629,306 grant to develop an advanced manufacturing project in the plastics industry for the entire state as well as several workforce development initiatives.
The college is developing a new lab that would hold an injection molding machine as well as robotics, according to Sam Ware, an automation engineer at Currier Plastics in Auburn. He recently spent a day on campus working with architectural students on a design for the lab.
Cayuga's grant was part of $14.6 million package awarded to the State University of New York system in a federal trade adjustment assistance bill in September 2012.
Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Mich., plans to build a plastic technology program and offer an associate degree in 2015, according to a report in the local newspaper, the Livonia Observer.
The report said that Schoolcraft will offer its first course in May and that it will be taught by Sasson Tarahomi, president-elect of the Society of Plastics Engineers Detroit Section.
Schoolcraft officials were not available for comment on April 5.