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MUSCATINE, Iowa - Paul Wilts teaches welding, hydraulics and pneumatics at Muscatine Community College. He's been an MCC instructor for 27 years.

And he's pretty excited about the new Muscatine Industrial Technology Center that opened earlier this year on the MCC campus.

"It's quite an improvement," he said as he gave tours of the facility during an open house held Monday that drew more than 100 visitors, most of them local business and community leaders.

Anticipating the needs of modern manufacturing in an increasingly high-tech world, "we need to marry electronics, pneumatics and hydraulics" in the lessons taught to students at MCC, he said.

"This gives us more space and more flexibility" to do that."

The new facility essentially triples the amount of space in the previous structure, which was stripped to its skeleton, then rebuilt and expanded on its southside campus location. There's more than 8,000 square feet in the new facility.

"We've had strong industrial tech programs and faculty here but this public-private partnership project gives us the missing piece," said MCC president Vic McAvoy during a brief program for visitors. "We can offer industry and student options they haven't had."

The partnership McAvoy noted includes nine local companies: Allsteel, The HON Co., Bandag, GPC/Kent Feeds, Monsanto, Heinz USA, Carver Pump, BT Prime Mover and Musco Sports Lighting.

A state grant through the Accelerated Career Education (ACE) program provided $500,000 of the $1.25 million project's cost. The Eastern Iowa Community College District, of which MCC is part, matched that sum as required and the business partners covered the remainder.

In addition, an alumnus of MCC made a $10,000 donation for equipment purchase. Donald E. Bentley, who attended MCC in 1942 and 1943, is chief executive officer of Bentley Pressurized Bearing Co. and is considered a world authority on rotor dynamics, vibration monitoring and diagnostics.

The expanded facility of classrooms, labs and storage space will enable MCC to better meet present and anticipated needs for more high-tech training in welding, machining, programmable logic control, robotics and electrical controls, school officials said.

Jeff Armstrong, MCC dean, predicts that current student enrollment of about 60 in MCC's industrial technology curriculums could double within a couple of years, "depending on demand in the marketplace."

One of the visitors, Richard Rissen, an industrial engineer at BT Prime Mover, noted the growing need for manufacturing employees with accelerated technical skills. "We have to make sure there are {qualified} workers for companies," and the Industrial Technology Center will help address that need, he said.

For more information on the Muscatine Industrial Technology Center and Muscatine Community College industrial technology programs, call (563) 288-6000 or toll free 1-888-336-3907.

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