Through a collaboration between Ivy Tech’s Tell City Career & Technology Center and Waupaca Foundry, six of Waupaca’s employees are receiving their Workforce Certificate after completing 18 credit hours of Industrial Maintenance.
This night, they will celebrate the completion of employees who have earned an interdisciplinary workforce certificate. Classes they took were paid for by the Foundry, and students were in class, while still getting paid their normal rate at Waupaca. The courses they have taken will give them the skills necessary to move up into other job opportunities at the Foundry.
WFI and the Perry County Development Corp (PCDC), have a long-standing partnership with Ivy Tech and invest in education in a multi-pronged approach:
- All 3 organizations engage with Perry Childcare through STEM activities at Ivy Tech
- WFI has invested in a robotics labs in the middle schools
- WFI mentors high school students in the IvySPARK electrical Dual Enrollment program through Ivy Tech Community College at the Tell City site.
- WFI and PCDC invested $500,000 in training equipment at Ivy Tech Tell City for all technology programs at the site
- WFI invests in its incumbent workforce to improve their skills and advance careers
- Ivy Tech has assisted WFI in finding funding sources through the Next Level Jobs Employer Training Grant and the Tech Hire grant to cover a portion of training and education costs. PCDC also assists in subsidizing costs, such as instructor travel.
Waupaca is a Hitachi Metals Group company that produces best-in-class gray iron, ductile iron, austempered ductile iron and compacted graphite iron castings at 7 foundries in North America. The Tell City plant is 560,000 square feet and has a workforce of about 1,000.
