New Vincennes University Education Center Unveiled

Last week, I attended the open house for the new Vincennes University Gene Haas Training and Education Center, located near Indianapolis in Lebanon, Indiana. The Gene Haas Foundation provided a $1.5 million grant to the city of Lebanon to help fund the construction of the 24,000-square-foot educational facility, which also houses the Haas Factory Outlet Midwest with demonstration area and offices.

The heart of the center is a CNC lab that includes five Haas VF-2 VMCs and five ST-10 turning centers as well as some TL-1 CNC lathes. There, students can take advantage of Vincennes University’s CNC Machinist NOW program, a 15-week, 600-hour training program designed both for military veterans as well as unemployed or under-employed folks looking to embark on a new career path. Similar programs are available for industrial maintenance and metrology, and the facility includes labs and classrooms for those programs, too.

During the open house, the Foundation also presented $382,400 to the center to be used for student scholarships. Kathy Looman, foundation administrator, says this year alone the Foundation has granted more than $9 million to manufacturing education in the form of scholarships, “inspiring young people to explore manufacturing as a career and program support.”