Technical Development Committee Report
March 2026 – by Al Mangels
The NESMA Technical Development Committee (TDC) meeting was held virtually on March 11th, 2026.
As Spring has finally arrived, we have reached the time of year when many students need to finalize their decisions about their future career plans and corresponding education and training. Many events related to career development have occurred and will continue to occur until the end of the school year. This is also the time for our members to reach out to the future workforce and tell our story, the story of manufacturing, and springmaking, and the great careers that can be found there.
Jordan Dombrowski at Tunxis Community College reports that 6-7 first semester students are qualified for internships and are actively being placed with company partners. The program recently conducted a successful mock interview event with 9 students meeting 8 companies, resulting in 72 interviews in 3 hours. Jordan also discussed upcoming shop tours and guest speaker events, including visits from Pursuit Aerospace, Bauer, and EBM PAPS, and mentioned that 10 new students have joined the program, with 3 being female. The program is currently recruiting for the fall cohort with 6 spots remaining as they already have 10 students.
Jordan and his students toured Acme Monaco, as did Bristol Tech students at Lee Spring in Bristol on March 24th. And Lynn Davis from Plainville High School provided an update on Plainville High School's new Trade Academy program, which aims to bridge workforce skills gaps through hands-on training in construction, HVAC, electrical, and manufacturing, with plans to launch in the 2026-27 school year.
David Weinholtz reports: "Things have been moving quickly here at MakerspaceCT. Several of our spring programs have just launched, including three MAKEnABLE cohorts focused on assistive technology design, along with our Engineering Primer Program and Engineering Primer Program PLUS. Our Engineering Fundamentals Course is also underway; the Wednesday section is full, but we still have a few remaining seats in the Friday cohort. We are also preparing for our free Summer STEAM program for youth ages 13–17. Right now, we are focusing on recruiting Hartford youth first, and as we meet enrollment thresholds, we will expand outreach beyond the city. The program runs weekly sessions throughout the summer and introduces students to areas like robotics, virtual reality, 3D printing, drones, and other hands-on technologies. In addition, Cole Grosner, our Education Director, and I will be presenting as part of the 2:00 pm Breakout Sessions at the 2026 Connecticut Workforce Summit: Reimagining Career Pathways (CBIA) on April 2. Our presentation is titled "From Handshake to On-Ramp: Building a One-Year Employer Partnership Pipeline", and focuses on the employer partnership model we have been developing with TRUMPF, and how a structured, relationship driven approach can translate employer engagement into pre-apprenticeship pipelines and real workforce pathways, a model that can be applied by many different types of organizations and Industry partners." You can find links below.
On March 25th, the Advanced Manufacturing Summit was held at Goodwin University, cohosted by the NAACP as they explained about their "second chance" programs. And on March 31st, the Manufacturing, Engineering & Technology Career Fair at Quinnipiac University attracted hundreds of students seeking internships and/or employment opportunities. The Fair featured encouraging speeches from several dignitaries including Senator Henry Blumenthal and CT Chief Manufacturing Officer Kirti Patel, among others. I was also glad to see that Mr. Patel had attended our NESMA Tabletop Show on March 24th. We now look forward to what might be the largest workforce event of the season, the Manufacturer ConneCTion Fair 2026, that will be held in Hartford on April 23rd.
Meanwhile, work continues on springmaker training materials. The new SMI course "204 – Beam Springs and Spring Washers" is now about 90% complete. And on March 25th, I attended the "Process Performance & Workforce Readiness in Electronics Manufacturing", hosted by Rich Dupont, as they hope to launch a new set of courses at Naugatuck Valley Community College, just to learn more about what it takes to launch a professional training program.
MAKEnABLE – Spring 2026 – Cohort A https://app.makerspacect.com/event-6572230
MAKEnABLE – Spring 2026 – Cohort B https://app.makerspacect.com/event-6574211
MAKEnABLE – Spring 2026 – Cohort C https://app.makerspacect.com/event-6574256
Engineering Primer Program – Spring 2026 – Wed/Friday Group https://app.makerspacect.com/event-6572092
Engineering Primer Program PLUS – Spring 2026 – Saturday Group https://app.makerspacect.com/event-6572033
Engineering Fundamentals Course – Wednesday https://app.makerspacect.com/event-6572113
Engineering Fundamentals Course – Friday (a few seats remaining) https://app.makerspacect.com/event-6572121