STARKVILLE — Ross Smith, Mississippi State University Bagley College of Engineering’s Innovation Design and Engineering Education Lab director, said there is clearly a need for more engineers and manufacturing workers in the aircraft composite materials industry.

That’s why he and members of MSU’s Advanced Composites Institute partnered on a new Department of Defense’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program-funded initiative to give hands-on instruction to more than 750 college students, alternate career seekers and industry workers over the next three years.

“We saw there was a major need for the composite manufacturing skill set in the state of Mississippi, and so we immediately started working together,” Smith told The Dispatch. “Obviously, ACI is a fantastic group. … (And) we do the traditional research, and we have industry projects and partnerships on the high … level type work. And we also do … focus very much on education as well as workforce development, so it’s kind of a natural marriage with us two as partners working together.”

The program started in June and accepted its first round of participants which took part in a two-week process beginning with online courses through the America’s Cutting Edge program, a national workforce development initiative launched in 2020 to address machinery manufacturing workforce needs, ACE’s website said.

During the second week, participants go through a bootcamp of hands-on experience constructing parts of an aircraft and learning the ropes of composite construction, said Wayne Huberty, ACI associate director.

“It works well because the IDEELab has been set up as a metalwork (and) metal machining (site), which is great,” Huberty said. “It gives a lot of opportunities to students on the main campus to go and use what they’re learning in the classroom and go do things.”

After that, program participants receive ACE accreditation and potentially recommendations from MSU faculty to improve their marketability at one of ACI’s local partners, like Airbus Helicopters or Aurora Flight Services, Huberty said.

The DOD funding helped jumpstart the program and cover the costs to applicants, IDEE Lab upgrades and K-12 outreach programs. Smith declined to specify the amount of grant funding the program received from the Department of Defense.

As the program continues, the goal is to expand its efforts beyond MSU’s campus and delve into expanded outreach with Mississippi elementary, middle and high school students to learn more about the career and potentially inspire careers in manufacturing among state students.

“We’re going to be going out to different schools as well throughout the state of Mississippi and sharing about composite manufacturing,” Smith said. “Now it’s not going to be a full training. We’re not going to have a middle schooler certified and doing composites manufacturing. But the key there is just saying, ‘Hey, a lot of people look at manufacturing still today as maybe a dirty job or maybe not so much of a cool job, but it really is.’”

The hope over the next two years is to flesh out the program and potentially have it apply to other ACE hubs as those sites continue to develop around the country, Smith said, adding that if all goes well, there is an option also to extend the program by two years.

“We’re going to be the leads and hopefully the developer of the aerospace side that hopefully will be able to transition and replicate nationally to other sites,” Smith said.