Today, the National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS), the precision manufacturing industry’s premier standards and certification body, and the Gene Haas Foundation (GHF), which provides scholarships to schools for students entering technical training programs, announced a new program to help schools prepare more students for success in precision manufacturing careers.

The GHF-NIMS Credentialing Grant Program will provide eligible secondary and post-secondary institutions with grants to build high-quality technical programs that provide students with industry-recognized credentials and foundational skills.  The Grant Program is launching with a $100,000 contribution from the GHF.

“With this program, we hope to support more high schools and community colleges as they build high-quality programs that use NIMS standards and credentials in order to deliver the most relevant and innovative training,” said the Gene Haas Foundation Board.  “This provides our country’s manufacturers an excellent workforce.”  

“There are an estimated 99,500 projected job openings for machinists and 117,100 projected job openings for industrial maintenance technicians nationally through 2020,” said Jim Wall, Executive Director, NIMS.  “We are proud to be working with the Gene Haas Foundation to help schools prepare more young people with skills and credentials they need to succeed in these in-demand jobs.”

The Grant Program officially kicked-off at the 2014 SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Kansas City, in which over 6,000 career and technical education students compete hands-on in 99 different trade, technical and leadership fields.  All competitors in the Precision Machining Technology, CNC Milling and CNC Turning programs will be the first to participate in the program, receiving grants to earn NIMS’ Level I Machining credentials.

About the Gene Haas Foundation

The Gene Haas Foundation was formed in 1999 to fund the needs of the local community and other deserving charities, at the discretion of its founder, Mr. Gene Haas. High on the list of priorities of the Gene Haas Foundation is supporting manufacturing education, which encompasses many types of programs that inspire and educate young people about careers in manufacturing.  In addition GHF provides scholarship funding for students to attend colleges that teach machining based skills.