SPOTLIGHT ON PETER CIRAK
The recipient for the 2021 FLATE Distinguished Manufacturing Partner Service Award needs no introduction. Peter Cirak, Quality Assurance Director at Seal Dynamics in Tampa, has been a longtime leading advocate for manufacturing. Cirak’s distinguished career is marked by many “firsts”. He was among the first cohort of honors students, the founder and first president of the Arete Honors Student Society at Hillsborough Community College (HCC) in Tampa. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Boston university where he was one of four transfer students in the nation to receive Boston University’s Trustee full academic scholarship. While at BU, Cirak accepted an offer into GE Aviation’s Edison Engineering Leadership program that kickstarted his career in aerospace manufacturing.
Cirak has worked on an eclectic range of aerospace platforms and applications in different capacities, quality being his primary expertise. A cornerstone of Cirak’s STEM career pathway has been an active and intentional effort to build crosswalks between education and industry, and his altruistic intention to give back. Cirak places the onus of defining the importance of manufacturing education and/or sparking students’ interest in manufacturing on educators and industry. Students, he believes, are more likely to show interest in pursuing educational and/or career pathways that they know about or are exposed to at primary/secondary schools. To that effect, if a community wants to support high-tech manufacturing, Cirak believes it has to build the infrastructure to provide the breadth of educational experiences that not only opens the doors for students, but raises awareness about opportunities that exist beyond those “doors.”
Successful recruitment into manufacturing programs and building a pipeline of skilled workers starts with a cohesive partnership between industry and education. Cirak notes that “industry cannot continue to act bewildered, when in fact manufacturing courses have been removed from regular curriculum at schools” and/or “year after year graduating classes fail to produce significant numbers of graduates that pursue manufacturing.” In that regard, Cirak tips the balance in favor of educators not only because he is aware of the constraints that they confront, but because he believes “industry professionals provide a depth and richness to the instruction that enhances the attractiveness of that field.”
Over the years, Cirak has gone the extra mile in maintaining close ties with his alma maters and the Tampa Bay manufacturing/STEM community-at-large by investing time and financial resources. His rationale is guided by his personal conviction that it is incumbent upon the manufacturing industry to aid educators where and when needed to facilitate quality education to the next generation of manufacturers so that are prepared to meet the demands of a global economy. He currently serves on the academic advising committees for the engineering technology programs at HCC and at St. Petersburg College (SPC) as well as the academic advising committee for the Honors Program at HCC.
On a local and regional level, Cirak is an active member of the Bay Area Manufacturers Association serving on several of its committees. He also serves on the Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Leadership Council for FloridaMakes and recently joined FloridaMakes’ Adopt-A-School committee. Cirak volunteers his time to STEM/manufacturing education on an annual basis during the Great American Teach-In and regularly serves as a guest instructor for K-12 classes through stemCONNECT in the fields of engineering and science.
Cirak’s engagement with the manufacturing community also extends into his partnership with the Florida Advanced Technological Education Center. He has been an active member of FLATE’s Industrial Advisory Committee (IAC) since 2011 and served as the Chair of FLATE’s IAC. Recently, Cirak taught the first FLATE Tech Talk in coordination with SPC. The Tech Talks represent FLATE’s endeavor to incorporate industry professional-lead instruction into the two-year A.S. degree in Engineering Technology (ET). He has been working with the A.S. ET program at HCC to resurrect a Zeiss coordinate measuring machine (CMM) by fundraising over $4000 to have it repaired and calibrated. The CMM will provide an additional robotic resource for the program, as well as improve their metrology instruction, a much-needed skill in the area. Cirak is presently working to develop industry partners to provide projects for students that will incorporate the use of the CMM. In 2008, Cirak received the HCC Outstanding Alumni award and in 2009 he received the Boston University Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award.
The
FLATE Awards represent a joint effort between FLATE and FloridaMakes to
recognize educators and industry leaders for their support of advanced
manufacturing and technical education in Florida. Awardees were selected from a
pool of nominations from across the state. Nominees were judged by an Awards
Committee comprised of industry representatives, FAITE board members, past
awardee(s), and member(s) of the FloridaMakes Workforce Leadership Committee. For more information about the FLATE Awards Program visit http://fl-ate.org/programs/flate-awards, or
contact Dr. Marilyn Barger, Executive Director at barger@flate.org
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