SCTCC Breaks Ground on New Manufacturing Lab

(KNSI) – A Saint Cloud campus has broken ground on a new state-of-the-art facility to train the region’s future manufacturers.

St. Cloud Technical & Community College is building an 8,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing lab which will be ready for students in the fall of 2023. The project received around $2.5 million from the federal Economic Development Administration.

Senator Tina Smith helped secure the funding and was at the groundbreaking. She says the private sector’s support was critical to the college getting the facility.

Jake Judd KNSI News

“This kind of training is a perfect fit for this community because there is strong collaboration between the business community and the educational community and the labor community to make sure that it happens. You can’t make great projects like this work without that strong collaboration on the private sector side. And that exists here.”

She says manufacturing labs like the one being built at SCTCC will usher in a new era.

“This lab is going to be a piece of what I believe will be a renaissance in manufacturing in this country and in this state. And that requires that we have people with the training to be able to go right into those great jobs.”

She says the workforce training issue is huge, especially as the nation emerges from the pandemic. SCTCC officials say graduates will find good-paying jobs in the energy and electronics fields thank to the program.

___