Latest news with #CVTC
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Gov. Evers tours Lippert Components in EC, touts training grants
EAU CLAIRE — Gov. Tony Evers toured Lippert Components Inc. on Monday, hearing about how the company is using training grants to attract and retain new employees. Lippert Components employs 600 people locally, including 450 workers in manufacturing, said Brian Schudiske, Lippert Components senior vice president. The company has been growing 15% annually, and one of the buildings Schudiske showed off is just two years old. Evers saw components that go on vehicles such as Hondas and Toyotas, as well as a variety of other customers. Matt Jerlecki, Lippert Components director of learning, explained to Evers that they are working with Chippewa Valley Technical College to train new workers specifically on jobs available at their location on the east side of Altoona. Jerlecki said they have trained 122 people since launching their program in March 2024. Some are learning welding skills, while others are learning fabrication skills, such as using lasers. 'It's a lot,' he told Evers. 'It's expanded our pool of potential welders.' Jerlecki said it has been an important partnership with CVTC as they utilize a $400,000 Fast Forward Worker Training Grant. The company received the grant in 2024 from the Department of Workforce Development 'to provide real skills and certifications aligned with high-demand manufacturing roles in the Chippewa Valley region,' a press release states. 'They've been willing to innovate with us,' Jerlecki said of CVTC. 'It's been able to allow us to grow our team. And we can expand now to high-school students. Our success rate is 90-some percent.' Jerlecki added of the outreach to high-schoolers: 'When they are working for us, they are getting paid. The real plan is three years from now, they'll become our engineers.' The company routinely has about 95% of all jobs filled. Jerlecki said a lot of that is because they keep expanding. 'We're going to continue to expand which is why we built this building,' Jerlecki said. 'We want to do more business in Wisconsin.' Evers said he was impressed with the tour. 'What is important to me is how well the CVTC and Lippert are working well together,' Evers said. 'They are making sure they are trained at the highest level possible. It's good for Wisconsin. They are a great company; they hire a lot of people. It's nice to see the pieces working together.' Over the past six years, Gov. Evers and his administration have 'made it a top priority to address the state's generational workforce challenges and build a workforce prepared to meet the needs of a 21st-century economy by making smart, strategic investments in key sectors,' a press release from his office reads. Jerlecki said he was thrilled to have the governor come and see the facilities. 'It's great for us to be able to share the success of our team members,' Jerlecki said.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Annual STEM event continuing to grow
(WLAX/WEUX) – An annual event designed to get young women invested in science, technology, engineering and math is continuing to expand. The fourth annual Imagine Summit, took place at CVTC recently, where nearly 100 students across nine western Wisconsin school districts attended. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
CVTC hosts area colleges at regional esports tournament
EAU CLAIRE — Over the weekend, many students from five area colleges met at Chippewa Valley Technical College in Eau Claire to compete in a sport that is becoming increasingly popular. Rather than football or soccer, a number of college esports teams faced off in two different video games for their playoff matches. Advertisement 'We just finished up our regular season,' said Zach Janot, esports student coach at UW-Stout. 'We played eight games of that, and went six and two, so now we are here to qualify for the state regional in May.' 'This is a regional LAN, which is an in-person tournament, from the Wisconsin Esports Conference,' said Erin Hazen, CVTC coordinator of clubs and leadership. 'That conference is a conference of many local Wisconsin-based colleges. We have been competing since early February, and this is the regional LAN — this is an equivalent of playoffs in traditional athletics.' LAN, which is short for local area network, is a term that is used when devices are connected to each other in one physical location. While the esports teams compete online, the two-day regional LAN was one example of when players meet face to face. The two games which students played were Super Smash Bros, a series published by Nintendo on the Nintendo Switch, and Overwatch 2, a game playable on the computer published by Blizzard Entertainment. 'This is considered the northwest region of the Wisconsin Esports Conference,' said Hazen. 'We have UW-Stout here (in Eau Claire), UW-River Falls, UW-Superior, UW-Eau Claire and then CVTC.' Advertisement Especially as the popularity of esports continues to grow in universities, many of the members also see colleges accepting esports teams onto campus as a part of the positive trend. 'People are starting to see it as an actual collegiate sport on the level of football, baseball and basketball,' said Janot. 'It is a big deal, and it is going to continue to become a bigger deal. 'Esports is all about teamwork. We are a team no more than any other collegiate sport; we have to coordinate together, we have to play each other every day. Even though I am the coach, we all coach each other because some of us can only see something about the game based on the characters we play.' In the first round of the round robin matches on Saturday, Austin Aguiler, CVTC club president, faced off against one of the players from Stout in a Super Smash Bros Match. Advertisement After the first round, Aguiler shared his thought process while playing and said, 'I am trying to stay calm. I was in sports all throughout high school, so I have the mentality for competitiveness and understand staying cool and thinking during that time while trying not to make any mistakes. 'I think that videogaming in general has become such a part of kids' and students' lives, and so when you are looking at meeting students where they are at, esports is really one of those really excellent things,' said Hazen. 'People are still playing traditional athletics and doing a lot more things, but most people have a computer in their house or a Switch in their house. It is something that is a little more approachable for people of different abilities or social economic statuses, and that is something that the colleges really like too because you don't need to invest into these huge stadiums. If you have room for 24 computers or a place for a Switch or two, you are able to put it together and host things like this.' While teams played on Saturday and Sunday, other teams at regional LAN tournaments in the Wisconsin Esports Conference, or WEC, were also competing simultaneously. For CVTC, Hazen said being able to support esport LAN matches on their campus is a great opportunity. 'It is sometimes hard to stay at the level of the UWs, especially for a technical college,' she said. 'Being able to bring them here and have them in our space is a really awesome opportunity. Even just competing against them in general is not something you would typically see in traditional athletics, but in esports people with so many different skills can get together and play against each other. It is really cool to not only be able to play against them, but also to be able to bring them to our space and host.'
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
CVTC honored with gold Military Friendly designation for supporting military families
EAU CLAIRE — As a first for the technical college, Chippewa Valley Technical School was named a 2025-26 gold-ranked Military Friendly School by the Military Friendly organization. Cody Dennis, CVTC Veteran Advisor and School Certifying Official, said, 'This is the first year that CVTC has received a Military Friendly gold status, so we are very excited. It is a historical moment. The president of CVTC [Sunem Beaton-Garcia] has really been supportive of our Veterans and our military families, so this is just fantastic news for us. 'It is a great honor for us. Last year and in the year prior we were silver, and in 2019 through 2023 we were bronze, so for us to be able to move up to gold is just awesome.' In being ranked by a national organization, Dennis said the designation looks at how well the school performs in 10 categories ranging from support resources, to graduation rates, to how they focus their accreditations to support Veterans, active duty members and their families. 'The highest thing we scored this year was graduation rates; CVTC has some really great graduation rates for our Veterans,' he said. Dennis said they currently serve 218 Veterans and active duty service members, with an additional 113 recognized as spouses and dependents of military members. The Military Friendly's gold designation is awarded to the top 20 percent of schools which exceed their criteria, as it recognizes the institution's support for those military students. 'We are dedicated to our Veteran service members and their families,' said Dennis. 'This role as a full-time Veteran advisor and school certifying official means that students have someone to go to to assist them. One of the things we do besides just getting you connected with your Veteran benefits is a big focus on transitioning to campus lifestyle and transitioning back to the community for a lot of our Veterans who have recently gotten out. We provide resources, connections with other Veteran groups, as well as we have our own Veteran community group here on campus where we are able to connect with students and help them as they transition out of the military and be there for them as someone who can relate to the service and sacrifices they made.' Dennis said the honor is less about achieving the ranking and more about showing their community that they are dedicated to their Veterans and their families. For the future, he said their aim will be to continue creating spaces and creating more community outreach opportunities for their students on top of continuing what is being done currently at the college. 'When they are coming here, they know that we are going to support them all the way through and then we are going to get them out into the workforce and start working again,' he said. 'For myself as a Veteran getting out, it can be stressful and a little scary transitioning to the civilian world because you are worried that the skills you have learned in the military may not apply to real life. CVTC does a fantastic job of tailing our programs to make sure that our Veterans can take what they have learned, go out into the community and do great things.'
