ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – On Friday, the Delta Schoolcraft Intermediate School District (ISD) dedicated a new addition to its Career and Technical Education (CTE) Center.
The district held a ribbon cutting for the Daniel J. Kobasic Memorial Welding Center. A large crowd gathered to celebrate its grand opening.
“It’s been about a two-year process between starting to talk about it, the design phase, trying to get funding, and today,” said ISD CTE Director Trent Bellingar. “It feels really good to have this open for the kids to learn the trade and the skills that we’re trying to teach them.”
Until now, the CTE Center rented space from Escanaba High School to use as its welding lab. With this new on-site welding center, students will be able to do all of their work in the same facility. According to Bellingar, it is also more environmentally friendly.
“We have brand new ventilation systems that actually clean and then return the air to our shop,” he said. “Then we can dispose of those fumes properly, rather than just spew it out in the air. It’s nice to be able to help the community through air quality… and in the industry, you might have dirty shops and you might have clean shops. We want to make sure [students] know they can look at the whole gamet of that.”
The new center features ventilation systems that contains 22 welding stations, whereas the old lab only had 11.
“That means that they can double their arc time, their practice time, instead of having to share,” Bellingar said. “Now, we can do multiple processes at one time instead of having to change machines. We’ll have dedicated TIG booths, we’ll have dedicated arc welding booths and flux-core booths, so they can do all of them and not have a lot of downtime. We’re trying to be more efficient.”
The Daniel J. Kobasic Memorial Welding Center was made possible by funding from the SME PRIME program, $500,000 from the Daniel J. Kobasic Foundation, and $1.4 million in Congressionally-directed spending, which was supported by Senator Gary Peters. State Senator Ed McBroom and Representative Dave Prestin attended the dedication to read a proclamation for the new center.
Students will be able to begin using the Daniel J. Kobasic Memorial Welding Center as soon as they return from spring break.
