Chris LaBranche enjoys the precision work he does as a tooling technician at Dymotek.

Chris LaBranche signed up for a career day field trip to get out of classes his senior year in high school. "I had no intentions of going and looking for work or a career," he said.

But the CNC machine and other industrial equipment on display as well as the conversations with machinists and others manufacturing employees caught his attention. Then Asnuntuck Community College staffers told him of the generous scholarships and paid internships available to their manufacturing technology students. By the time he learned of the 90% employment rate for the graduates of the one-year certificate program, LaBranche was set on a manufacturing career.

"That got me hooked right there. I wanted a job right out of school," LaBranche said. He is now a toolmaker for Dymotek Plastic Injection Molding in Ellington, Connecticut.

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At ATE Central, part of our goal is to connect ATE faculty and students to relevant, helpful information and meaningful opportunities. Below are brief overviews of five such opportunities, including a really exciting competition from the National Science Foundation (NSF), several internships from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and an online learning opportunity from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Please pass this post along to students and colleagues in your network and let us know about other programs, events, and opportunities you think would be helpful for others in ATE to learn about. We will be happy to post them on the ATE Events Calendar, cover them in a blog post, or promote them through our ATE Central Connection newsletter.

During a panel discussion at the ATE Principal Investigators Conference last week, Matt Glover, senior director of Global Information Technology for AMX by Harman, talked about interviewers' positive impression of Chelsea Hall-Fitzgerald, who will complete her associate degree from Collin College in December.

Six months ago, a rainbow-haired Chelsea Hall-Fitzgerald had just completed a computer networking certificate at Collin College. She also worked part time in a big box appliance store.

Today, her hourly wage as a full-time project coordinator for AMX by Harman is three times what she made as a clerk, and she is on track to complete her associate degree at Collin College in December.

Hall-Fitzgerald became an information technology (IT) technician before graduation because the humble attitude, tenacity, and, most importantly, excitement for IT that she demonstrated during a student presentation got her a interview for a job initially advertised as requiring a bachelor's degree.

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As members of the ATE community know, apprenticeships work. A number of recent reports have focused on the economic advantage that such programs provide. Notably, after completion, 87% of apprentices in the United States find jobs and the average starting salary of apprentice completers reaches upward of $50,000 a year. After six years, earnings of the average apprenticeship participant are 1.4 times greater than the earnings of non-participants.

In addition, apprenticeship programs in the United States don’t only help those who participate in them; they help the larger community as well. A recent Washington State study found that, for every $1 the state government spent to help a community college student enter and finish an apprenticeship program, tax payers received a whopping $23 on the investment.

Kyle Koopmeiners, a student lab leader at InnovaBio, tests a synthetic version of human brain-derived neurotrophic factor for a client of the non-profit commercial research organization operated by the biotechnology department of Salt Lake Community College.

There is an obvious industriousness to the students entering the lab marked InnovaBio along the wide hallway occupied by the Biotechnology Department at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC).

Arriving at different times throughout the day, the students stride through the door to bench spaces marked with their names, check lab notebooks for instructions about their assigned experiments, don lab coats and gloves, and get to work.

Ten years after the non-profit, contract research organization began at SLCC with the support of an Advanced Technological Education grant from the National Science Foundation, InnovaBio continues to provide student interns with commercial biotech research lab experience. InnovaBio has 21 interns this fall, and has served more than 220 students since 2004.

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This October, with support from NSF, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) will once again hold the biggest ATE gathering of the year in Washington, DC: the National ATE Principal Investigators Conference. For projects and centers old and new, the annual conference offers a chance to share, collaborate, learn, and meet with other innovative members of the ATE community, including PIs, select project and center staff, and NSF program officers. ATE Central is particularly excited about this year’s meeting; after all, ATE only turns 21 once!

Along with other projects and centers, ATE Central is gearing up to host and assist with a number of events at this year’s conference. In getting ready to head to DC, many of us will be double checking website material, creating handouts or workshop material, and generally making sure that our project and center information is up to date. A number of ATE Central services and tools may be helpful in your efforts, as you get ready for the 2014 Conference:

Daniel Horine, center, teaches students in the mechatronics lab at Virginia Western Community College.

Daniel Horine, principal investigator of two National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (ATE) project grants, sees the high demand for mechatronics technicians, who have a combination of mechanical, electrical and computer skills, as evidence of their career opportunities and their importance to manufacturers whose output influences the nation's economic health.

"Mechatronics is thinking about the end in mind and [about] how we are going to integrate these systems from the beginning ... I want mechatronics and the integrated approach to be a way of teaching, and break down the silos and barriers, so that we are setting up our students for success," Horine said.

Horine received the Educator of the Year Award at the High Impact Technology Exchange Conference (HI-TEC) for developing the Mechatronics Systems Engineering Technology associate in applied science degree at Virginia Western Community College (VWCC) in Roanoke, Virginia. At the HI-TEC conference Horine explained that helping other people succeed is the most gratifying aspect of his professional life. "Knowing that I'm helping them have a career so they can provide for their family, that's a pretty noble cause in my opinion," he said.

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The ATE Student Success Story videos, created in collaboration with WGBH, Boston, highlight the struggles and triumphs of a diverse set of students in ATE project and center settings. With support and guidance from PIs, staff, and industry partners, their lives and careers have been changed for the better. Each video documents a unique success story, but all of them have a common theme: technician training has the power to change lives. Below are brief overviews of five of the ten videos created over the last several years. Visit the ATE Central Student Success Story pages for a full overview of all ten stories. The videos are a great way to promote the work of ATE projects and centers and can be used freely in educational settings to help bring attention to the importance and impact of workforce development and community college programs in general and the ATE program in particular.

Mel Cossette coaches Jonathon Beck on the final details for submitting his Advanced Technological Eduction grant proposal during the Mentor-Connect leadership development workshop in Chicago. Cossette is executive director of the MatED National Resource Center. Beck is an instructor at Northland Community and Technical College in East Grand Fork, Minnesota.

Mentor-Connect's leadership development strategies and proposal-writing advice get big thumbs up from its mentees.

"It has been the most fantastic experience I've had professionally in years," said Jacqueline Smith, assistant professor of Engineering Technology at Chattanooga State Community College.

She and four other community college educators who were in the first Mentor-Connect cohort enthusiastically endorsed the Advanced Technological Education outreach initiative at a Mentor-Connect workshop on July 22 in Chicago. All of the speakers had recently received official notice from the National Science Foundation that the grant proposals they had prepared with Mentor-Connect's guidance were funded.

The application process for the third cohort of Mentor-Connect mentees for 2014-15 is now open. Twenty colleges will be selected to receive mentoring on the basis of applications that are due October 10. See http://www.mentor-connect.org for more information.

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Newsletters are a valuable outreach tool for ATE projects and centers hoping to build relationships and disseminate information. Yet, doing it right requires a lot of foresight, juggling of different types of content and pieces, and focused awareness of your mission, goals, and intended audience. In our July issue of the ATE Central Connection, we featured The WomenTech Educators Newsletter as a wonderful example in terms of the quality and quantity of its content. Donna Milgram, Executive Director of the National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science (IWITTS) shared with us the history, successes, and lessons learned from working on this exemplary e-newsletter. Keep reading for the complete interview, followed by some helpful links on best practices and analytic tools to help create a successful e-newsletter.