Are you opening a new business in the Upper Peninsula and in search of someone to deliver quality training to your new employees? Do you have an idea for a new product and need professional assistance to manufacture the prototype? Are you looking for new employees with training in the most current technical standards and operating techniques?
The answer to those questions and many more can be found at the new Center for Innovation and Industrial Technology. Located in
Northern Michigan University's Jacobetti Center, the center is the result of efforts to bring together three different areas of the university.
Daryl Kobie is the department head for technology and occupational sciences. "We work closely with businesses," Kobie says. His department includes degrees in construction, hospitality, and food service management programs along with technology degrees in automotive service, aviation maintenance, building, climate control, and industrial maintenance as well as certificates and other programs.
Kobie says the new center allows the three areas to pool their resources and strengthen the way they work together. One example of his department's involvement was a recent experience where his co-op students traveled to a Wyoming business in order to mirror a program a local company will be doing at a later date.
Michael Rudisill, engineering technology department head, agrees with Kobie. "A lot of this has been going on for a long time," he says. He oversees bachelor degree programs in electronics engineering, industrial technology, and mechanical engineering as well as associate degree programs in CNC technology, electrical technology, and engineering design.
One of the biggest goals of creating a center out of the separate departments is to improve customer service.
"When somebody comes in the building, we can tell them where to go," Rudisill explains.
Now, the Center for Innovation and Industrial Technology ensures every request will get to the right person, who can evaluate their need and get experts involved.
Robert Eslinger is the director of continuing education and workplace development, the third Jacobetti program that makes up the center.
"The pieces have all been here," Eslinger says. "They'll know how to enter the university, who to talk to, and that there's a process. We want to help local companies."
The first step in that help is to review the way the three departments operate and determine how best they can operate together. The center isn't a complete merger, but a system of organizing how customers' requests can be processed by the university.
Another goal is to not simply wait for customers to come in the door. "The center's attempt is addressing the needs of the region holistically," Eslinger adds. "Sometimes it leads to the identification of a gap that I didn't know existed."
One of those gaps is already being addressed.
"The program here in the Jacobetti Complex is probably better known nationally than locally," Eslinger says. The next goal of the center, then, is "to raise awareness of what the capabilities are here at the university."
Recently, the continuing education department offered a course on problem solving. Several faculty and staff from NMU attended as well as employees of three local manufacturers and a local mine.
That problem solving course illustrates one of the biggest advantages of forming the Center for IIT – synergy. "[It is] an important aspect of the three of us working together," Eslinger says.
Although the center is too new to have any formal partnerships--or even signs for the matter--the department heads bring in existing community relationships to the group. Some of those include the Lake Superior Community Partnership, the Marquette Economic Club, Community Development Council, Michigan Works JobForce Board, Career Connections, Accelerate U.P., Northern Initiatives, and Operation Action U.P., among others.
Rudisill says the goal is to "capitalize on those community partnerships collectively." Between the three of them then they find they are open to a wide variety of public institutions, "from mines to restaurants and everything in between."
"It could be any industry," he says.
Eslinger points to the most recent request the center fielded as an example of how the center can work with the community. In late January, a student in the hospitality management program approached his professor about hosting a training session in his position managing a local restaurant. That professor contacted Eslinger who passed the request to Kobie.
"If we can't help them, we'll try to connect them to someone who can," Eslinger promises. "It's these kinds of things we want to get better," he adds, citing a regional airport looking for a group to conduct a study. "We want to elevate the level of knowledge."
Lee F. Brown is a freelance journalist, novelist, and restaurant manager who has lived in the U.P. his whole life. A graduate of Michigan Tech, Lee resides in Marquette with his wife and three children.