MPTC, NASA Partnership Teaches Skills for Aerospace Industry

An educational partnership between Moraine Park Technical College and NASA is aiming to set students up for a successful future. School president Bonnie Baerwald says they signed an agreement to help students learn skills that may be needed in the aerospace industry. 

She tells us “the focus for Moraine Park is really going to be on a lot of our engineering type course work, electromechanical, mechanical design, process engineering, industrial manufacturing, quality assurance – so they really really focus on the STEM, those science, technology, and math programs.”

Baerwald also says while there are big opportunities through the engineering field, NASA is looking for people to serve in other roles as well. She says, “obviously they have their professional-level careers, but on the technician side, they’re looking for people on the entry-level engineering programs, they’re looking for folks in procurement and IT and budgeting and accounting, project management – all of those type of degrees, which Moraine Park offers.”

Baerwald adds that the agreement with NASA will also benefit students beyond the classroom. She tells us “I know they have scholarship opportunities, they have different types
of grant awards, so we’re going to be looking at those and hopefully we can
connect some students with a career at NASA.”