Global Manufacturer Ducommun Corporation Turns to College for Interactive Course
March 16, 2018
Ducommun is a global corporation with 16 manufacturing facilities around North America and Thailand, and contracts to fabricate precision sheet metal components for companies like Boeing, Sikorsky and Airbus.
But when several of the 240 employees at its Coxsackie manufacturing facility were looking to increase their education, Ducommun turned to Hudson Valley Community College. This semester, the college is delivering a class straight to the company's Greene County site through interactive videoconferencing.
"We like to promote people from within and we had some employees looking to go back for technical degrees," said engineering manager Vincent Santoro. "We first reached out to (Department Chair) Chris LaPlante for this specific course, and she's the one who got us rolling. We knew we had the equipment and capabilities to (receive the course) on-site."
Three Ducommun employees are taking Statics and Dynamics, (MECT 125) this spring, which is part of the Mechanical Engineering Technology curriculum. The class is taught in one of the college's videoconferencing classrooms, which allows the Ducommun employees to see and interact with Instructor Peter Czuwala on campus through high definition video and media. An additional 20 students in the Mechanical Engineering Technology program are also in Czuwala's classroom on campus.
The link with Ducommun is just a small part of the videoconferencing services that Hudson Valley offers. The college offers about a dozen videoconferenced courses this semester and connects to about 30 school districts, offering college-level courses to high schools around the state.
"This is an excellent example of how the college's videoconferencing staff provide interactive content to industry partners in order to meet their education or training needs," said President Drew Matonak. "We know there are businesses and organizations in the region who can take advantage of the courses we have to offer and we can be the 'go-to' provider of college-level coursework that can be delivered directly to places of businesses through videoconferencing."
Ducommun is so happy with the chance to offer college-level courses for its employees right at the Coxsackie facility that they've already told the college they will be registering students for a class in the fall – a mechanical engineering technology course on electricity.
For more information on how the college's Videoconference Operation Center can help your business, contact Eric Kiel at e.kiel@hvcc.edu or (518) 629-7625.
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Founded in 1953, Hudson Valley Community College offers more than 80 degree and certificate programs in four schools: Business; Engineering and Industrial Technologies; Health Science; and Liberal Arts and Sciences; and an Educational Opportunity Center for academic and career training. One of 30 community colleges in the State University of New York system, it has an enrollment of nearly 11,500 students, and is known as a leader in distance learning initiatives and workforce training. Hudson Valley has more than 75,000 alumni.