Apollo Career Center Automation and Robotics Instructor Ricky Collar, left, tells Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted on Wednesday how the school will use a $1.1 million Career Technical Education Equipment Grant.
Charlotte Caldwell | The Lima News
LIMA — Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted visited Apollo Career Center on Wednesday to announce Apollo will receive a $1,175,925 Career Technical Education Equipment Grant to fund the automation and robotics department, advanced manufacturing and agriculture.
Apollo Career Center Superintendent Keith Horner described what will be purchased with the grant as an “industrial cell with a robotic arm and all the components of a typical industrial line that students can troubleshoot and fix.”
School officials decided to apply for equipment funding because they wanted to create “a nice pathway that would work from grade 4 all the way to a bachelor’s degree in engineering.”
“We chose this because it aligned nicely with our home schools, and it also aligned nicely with business and industry needs that we have in our community,” Horner said.
Mark Reed, the apprentice training supervisor at GROB Systems, Inc. in Bluffton, mentioned how this grant also trickles down to two of Apollo’s home schools: Allen East and Ada.
“The funding that’s going to allow Apollo to enhance its automation and robotics program will enable Allen East to strengthen STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) awareness for grades four to eight and expand its agricultural and environmental systems program. It’s going to support Ada in launching a new high school CTE manufacturing program,” Reed said.
This is the second round of funding for the CTE Equipment Grant Program. Lima schools also received $1,041,285 in this round for its culinary, education and agriculture programs. In the first round of funding, Bath schools received $2,022,500.
Husted said the second round gave away $29.5 million to 34 schools and will serve 6,330 students. He said the careers it will benefit include precision agriculture equipment technicians, additive manufacturing technicians and robotics engineers, and it will also bolster the local economy.
“When you have talent, businesses want to grow,” Husted said. “If you don’t have talent, they can’t grow. It’s a circumstance where everybody wins. People get the skills they need to have job security and great career opportunities, and the employers get the talent they need to succeed.”
Husted toured Apollo’s automation and robotics department before announcing the grant funding and talked to instructor Ricky Collar and his students.
“It’s such a fun thing when you see students with that excitement in their eyes about what they’re doing,” Husted said. “You don’t see that excitement a lot of times in the students’ eyes about heading off to school, but I could see it in their eyes, and the pride that they take and the things that they’ve been able to achieve. I know that the new machinery and equipment is going to really prepare them for next level job preparation training.”
Reach Charlotte Caldwell at 567-242-0451.
