Advanced Manufacturing Podcast

In this episode I travel to NW Iowa to a town called Rock Valley, to see something truly unique and interesting. Do you remember shop class in high school? You know, where you got a chance to use a drill and perhaps you built a birdhouse or picture frame? Well, in Rock Valley they go BIG! They built a full size manufacturing facility onto the high school and they call it Rocket Manufacturing! That's right. Students get hands on welding, machining, CAD design, and more!  These students are getting hands on manufacturing experience by creating real products for local companies and the program uses the money generated from that for new equipment, raw materials, and other operational costs, just like a real business would. I get a chance to sit down with school Superintendent, Chad Janzen, and he shares his journey that took him from farm fields to big city light s in LA before coming back to the midwest. He shares the challenges and the resources that it took to pull off something like Rocket Manufacturing and