Industry and community leaders met at J.F. Drake State Technical and Community College last week to celebrate the announcement of a new manufacturing center to be constructed on campus.

Developed in partnership with NASA, the planned facility will teach students the technical skills needed to manufacture advanced materials, components, and machines. Applications for the center include robotics, automobile engineering, and the construction of space habitation modules.

Among the speakers at Wednesday’s event was Larry Deutscher, General Manager of Manufacturing Support at Toyota Alabama. Deutscher praised the timing of the new addition.

“The auto industry is at a point now where we’re going to be seeing a great deal of change. Electrification, artificial intelligence, machine learning…and who is going to make all of that happen? Team members who were trained at centers like this.”

Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle was on hand to offer his thoughts on the occasion, as was his counterpart, Madison Mayor Paul Finley.

“This is a place where opportunity begins, and it ends at the workplace,” said Mayor Battle.

Mayor Finley added, “This isn’t just throwing money at a problem. They did the homework to find out exactly what they needed to add, in order to make their campus, and our community, better.”

Drake State President Patricia Sims noted that the facility will be, “New, clean, and modern, to reflect the industries that it will service.” She also reflected on the process of getting the manufacturing center designed and approved, a process that began back in 2020. “The priority then, and the priority now, is getting more, trained workers into the workforce.”

Construction is expected to begin in January of next year.