From the Executive Director's Desk

With the start of a new academic year, I am happy to report that the two-year Engineering Technology degree has grown to include eight different specialization tracts (advanced manufacturing, advanced technology (composites), alternative energy systems, biomedical systems, digital design and modeling, electronics, mechanical fabrication and design, and quality) at 10 different colleges across the state. These programs are growing and maturing, and there are now students graduating from these programs every semester. Responding to some recent requests, and to help all Florida industries find these graduates, FLATE has just launched its new “HIRE an ET GRAD” pages on FLATE’s Made in Florida website www.madeinflorida.org/graduate/. From this portal, industry has direct access to ET programs across Florida via a link to the person overseeing the program they are interested in hiring. It’s very simple to use and works like this:

• Navigate to http://www.madeinflorida.org/ home page.
• Click on the green “hire an ET graduate” button under the home page intro flash slide show.
• Click the link to login.
•  Login with your name, position, company (you will set a password, but you will not need it to get to the   page again if you login from the same machine in the future).
• Once logged in, you will see the list of ET Degree specializations with a summary of the course topics which make each unique. Click on the specialization that offers courses that cover the skills you are looking for and a pop-up window will open with all colleges offering that specialization.
• Click on the contact from any school you wish to contact.
• Send an email about the position you are looking to fill. Please does not change the email subject line; it is auto filled to alert the college contacts that your message is from this webpage. The auto text is “HIRE AN ET GRAD REQUEST”.
• The college contact will reply with recent and potential graduates as well as answer any questions you might have about that specific program of study.

Please visit these new pages and explore how they work – and give us some feedback to let us know if this will be useful, as well as your ideas how to make it even better.

We have added other features in the last few months as well – including our ET Student profiles http://madeinflorida.org/student-profiles/. Industry might find potential new hires on this page as well! There are separate pages for college students and high school students and you can navigate back and forth easily. Teachers and faculty (and anyone else) can direct students to the link on this page that takes students to a short online survey. We develop profiles based on survey answers. We do not post the student profiles without a photo, so all students are given instructions on what they need to for that. Please explore this site and consider including students from your area by contacting local schools and colleges. We would love to have profiles for students from every school around the state.

Thanks to Janice Mukhia, our newsletter editor, the September issue of the FLATE Focus is packed with interesting stories. This issue chronicles a story about Southern Manufacturing Technologies Inc., a local industry partner who has been at the forefront of providing high-tech custom manufacturing and machining services, outlines South Florida Manufacturing Association’s strategies to promote international trade initiatives in the region, and discusses FLATE’s STEM-based professional development initiatives geared to increase the pipeline of skilled workers. We are also starting a new “announcements” section that will feature news about ongoing and upcoming events, conferences, grant opportunities etc. Please contact us if you have any questions, or have a story you would like to tell in the FLATE Focus, a project you think we might be able to partner with, questions about manufacturing education in Florida. Have a wonderful week!