FORT WAYNE – Ten high school students signed on to join the fifth cohort of the Northeast Indiana Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (NEINFAME) — a partnership that includes Ivy Tech Community College Fort Wayne and Kosciusko County — on April 24.
The students, along with company representatives and mentors, signed certificates of commitment 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 10 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 a career in just two years.
The following students make up the 2025–26 cohort: Jordan Banks, Wayne Trace High School, Steel Dynamics Inc.; Alex Brennan, East Noble High School, Steel Dynamics Inc.; Ethan Carlyle, Leo Jr./Sr. High School, Fort Wayne Metals; Austin Crozier, Leo Jr./Sr. High School, Micropulse; Blake Denman, Angola High School, Steel Dynamics Inc.; Brady Dettmer, Norwell High School, Fort Wayne Metals; Hudson Hines, Leo Jr./Sr. High School, Zimmer Biomet; Brooks Porter, Huntington North High School, Fort Wayne Metals; Adan Rodriguez, Warsaw Community High School, Zimmer Biomet; and Layla Sutton, Huntington North High School, Incipio Devices.
“The reason I love the FAME program is because it allows these students to gain two years of experience at some really great northeast Indiana companies, in a career that is highly sought after,” said Ian Loughner, NEINFAME instructor. “The technical skills they will learn at Ivy Tech while they earn an associate's degree, added with some soft skills, and two years of on-the-job experience, can be a pretty good start to a 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., Incipio Devices 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 2026 cohort will open July 2025. Learn more about NEINFAME at neinfame.com. Contact Beiswanger at 260-969-3506.