NIMS Appoints New Board of Directors

The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) announces the appointment of four new industry leaders to the NIMS board of directors in 2023. They will each serve for three years.

Joanna Dowling is the director of The Custom Group Center for Manufacturing Technology in Woburn, Massachusetts. The Center for Manufacturing Technology is an advanced manufacturing training facility that offers a wide range of customizable, certificate-based programs to meet the training needs for manufacturing companies throughout New England. Dowling brings over 25 years of experience within the manufacturing industry. She is actively involved within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to promote the manufacturing sector and the importance of education and training for sustaining manufacturing in Massachusetts.

Neil Ashbaugh is the president and CEO of New Century Careers (NCC) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has over twenty years’ experience in manufacturing, from the shop floor to human resources and technical training management. Hired by Oberg Industries Inc. in Freeport, Pennsylvania, he started as a journeyman precision grinder before holding corporate positions in sales, marketing and management roles, as well as in training and talent development, government projects and new product development.

Ryan Spielman is a director of manufacturing at Woodward Inc. in Fort Collins, Colorado. Spielman started his career in manufacturing in 1995 in a small machine shop. In 1998, he joined Woodward Governor as a machinist. After a year, he moved into the continuous improvement team within Manufacturing Engineering, where he led various groups, including the parts manufacturing quality team. Spielman later moved to the company’s headquarters and was promoted to the global operations training manager role, where he was able to influence and grow the company-wide operations training programs to now have formal onboarding programs in place at all U.S. locations. In July of 2022, Spielman moved into the director of manufacturing role at the Lincoln Campus, a part of the Industrial COE, where he leads the manufacturing floor.

Stephen Leonard is an operations and program manager for the Digital Foundry, Penn State, in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, a new digital manufacturing demonstration and educational facility. He is responsible for developing and managing the workforce development programs designed to provide upskilling or reskilling for unemployed and dislocated workers. Leonard has been a practicing industrial designer and technical innovator for over 35 years. He has demonstrated leadership in design, development, design for manufacture and management of projects. Previously, Leonard worked as a senior innovation leader for Alcoa/Arconic at the Alcoa/Arconic Technology Center (ATC), where he was responsible for orchestrating front-end innovation programs for Arconic and facilitating new growth programs. He is said to be the recipient of 56 U.S. patents.