Supporting Veteran's Day With the Best Job Skills at Workshop for Warriors

Veteran’s Day was established after WWI to remember those who served. Today Workshops for Warriors in San Diego California is rebuilding America’s advanced manufacturing workforce by a rigorous skills based training program with the latest technology. I got to visit WFW with my colleague, Chris Morse, who runs the SOLIDWORKS Military Veterans Program (MVP) at Dassault Systemes.

The SOLIDWORKS team has also been at WFW to create this video for Veteran’s Day.

Workshops for Warriors serves two purposes: to provide veterans and wounded warriors with life-sustaining careers and to help regrow America’s manufacturing workforce.

SolidWorks has been part of the Workshops for Warriors for the past five years and the EDU team and Dave Alpert, SolidWorks Value Added Reseller, Go Engineer got an in depth tour with Ana Cláudia Guedes,

When you walk into the shop there is a sense of pride. Entire walls around the room proudly display nationally recognized certificates that stress excellence achieved in welding, machining, and design from the American Welding Society (AWS), National Institute of Metal Working Skills (NIMS), Mastercam University, Immerse to Learn, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Students also are working towards and have achieved Certified SolidWorks Associate (CSWA) and after our visit will soon be able to test for Certified SolidWorks Professional, (CSWP).

Since 2011, the placement rate has been 100% with over 100 graduates.

The tour continued to shops with the best equipment and master instructors. All Vets learn manual techniques on mill and lathes and then quickly progress to Haas CNC.

Workshops for Warriors has many projects in reverse engineering complex “one of a kind” parts that require special tooling.

Machine repair to some to some “oldies” but “goodies” with improved retrofitting is also learned. We saw this DoALL that had been redesigned and fitted with hoses not available circa WWII.

Students work on real projects that help to fund Workshops for Warriors as they wait two more years to see if this organization will be eligible for government funding. Student continue to learn by reverse engineer difficult threads in custom parts for ship’s use.

The tour continued to the largest welding bay I have ever seen with 18 stations. The stations have a state of the art air ventilation system along with extra-large bays and support frames to accommodate extended motion requirements by the students.

I personally thank Chris of the SOLIDWORKS EDU team who has managed our DS SOLIDWORKS Veterans Program for 10 years. Chris has gone above and beyond to support WFW and Veterans. Chris makes our support for Veterans possible.

Thank you Workshops for Warriors for the business card holders and sharing with the SolidWorks EDU team and SolidWorks Community. Thank you Chris for helping our SOLIDWORKS Veterans. Marie

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Marie Planchard

Senior Director, Early Engagement, 3DEXPERIENCE Works at Dassault Systemes

Marie Planchard is an education and engineering advocate. As Senior Director of Education & Early Engagement, SOLIDWORKS, she is responsible for global development of content and social outreach for the 3DEXPERIENCE Works products across all levels of learning including educational institutions, Fab Labs, and entrepreneurship.