Hypertherm Names Winners of ‘Spark Something Great’ Grant
Hypertherm has announced its 2018 Spark Something Great educational grant recipients. The winners were selected from nearly 150 grant applications from high schools, vocational schools, and community colleges in the United States and Canada.
The grant program, now in its fourth year, aims to get the latest plasma technology into schools so the next generation of metalworkers can train on the equipment they will find once entering the workforce, according to the company. Each school will receive a Hypertherm Powermax45 XP plasma system, Hypertherm’s AWS SENSE approved Plasma Cutting Technology: Theory and Practice curriculum kit, and in-person training from a Hypertherm industrial cutting expert.
“Choosing among the applications is extremely difficult, as we continue to see an enormous amount of need among programs teaching greater numbers of students with fewer tools,” said Betsy Van Duyne, who manages Hypertherm’s educational program. “This makes getting the right equipment into the hands of students even more critical as many would not have the opportunity to learn how to use a modern plasma system without a grant like this.”
The 2018 Spark Something Great grant recipients are as follows:
- Arkansas Welding Academy of Jacksonville, Arkansas
- Cedar Community Secondary School of Nanaimo, British Columbia (Canada)
- Central High School of Independence, Oregon
- Fowler High School of Fowler, California
- Homedale High School of Homedale, Idaho
- McAllen Memorial High School of McAllen, Texas
- Northwest High School of Opelousas, Louisiana
- Rogers High School of Toledo, Ohio
- SouthTech Academy of Boynton Beach, Florida
- White County Central High School of Judsonia, Arkansas
In addition to providing Spark Something Great grants, Hypertherm supports schools by offering educational discounts to teachers and students and by making its plasma curriculum available for free download, according to the company.
“To date, teachers from more than 1,600 schools have acquired the lesson plans helping standardize the teaching of plasma cutting to thousands of students,” the company stated in a news release. “Hypertherm also offers its ProNest for Education program which places its ProNest CAD/CAM nesting software in schools. Since launching the program two years ago, Hypertherm has donated 79 ProNest packages valued at more than $13 million dollars.”
For more information, visit Hypertherm.com.
