FORT WAYNE – Eight high school students signed on to join the fourth cohort of the Northeast Indiana Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (NEINFAME) — a partnership that includes Ivy Tech Community College Fort Wayne and Warsaw — on Thursday.
The students, along with company representatives and mentors, signed contracts in Ivy Tech Fort Wayne’s Flex Lab within The Steel Dynamics Inc. Keith E. Busse Technology Center, according to a news release from Ivy Tech.
“Northeast Indiana FAME is excited to be signing eight students into this year’s program,” said Staci Beiswanger, employee development manager at Steel Dynamics Inc. “Over the course of the next two years, these students will earn a degree in industrial technology while participating in a paid work experience for one of the sponsoring companies. They have an opportunity to apply their newly learned skills in the workplace while meeting the employers’ needs for highly skilled talent.”
Sponsor companies provide students with paid work experience, giving them the opportunity to earn enough income to pay for the costs of the program and begin an exciting career in just two years.
Oliver Van, Manchester Jr./Sr. High School, Micropulse; and Jett Woods, Warsaw Community High School, Zimmer Biomet; are in the 2024–25 cohort.
“The FAME program is the perfect partnership for employers, students, and prospective professionals,” said Bob Boxell, NEINFAME instructor. “We are all able to merge together here so that the students and employers can sign and commit to this great two-year path towards a very rewarding career.”
Students get to train in Ivy Tech Fort Wayne’s Flex Lab space — a multi-million-dollar facility, funded in-part by NEINFAME sponsor companies, full of tools needed to learn advanced manufacturing technologies including robotics, automation, electrical, hydraulic, mechanical, safety and more. It also houses state-of-the-art equipment including mechatronic fully automated systems, FANUC robots, Allen Bradley programmable logic controllers, variable frequency drives, IO- Link and Cognex machine vision.
NEINFAME sponsor companies include Fort Wayne Metals, Micropulse, Steel Dynamics Inc., Advanced Machine and Tool (AMT) and Zimmer Biomet.
NEINFAME is part of the national FAME-USA network (fame-usa.com) and the statewide Indiana FAME initiative, which has built similar partnerships in four regions around Indiana (indianafame.com).
Applications for the fall 2025 cohort will open July 2024. Learn more about NEINFAME at neinfame.com. Contact Staci Beiswanger at 260-969-3560.