Jeffery Farley, Mid-State Machine Products, at left, holds a digital height gauge the company donated to Central Maine Community College. With him from left are Lloyd Pulsifer, program chairman; Pete McAllister, human resource manager at Mid-State Machine; and Kevin Wilkes, ’07, a graduate of the program and a machinist at Mid-State Machine.

Mid-State Machine donates equipment

AUBURN – The machine tool technology program at Central Maine Community College was bolstered by the donation of six digital height gauges from Mid-State Machine Products of Winslow.

Valued at approximately $1,200 apiece, the gauges are designed to measure objects to within .0005 inches or .01mm. Students in the program will use the instruments for presetting tools for several of their computer numerical controlled machines.

Mid-State Machine, a manufacturer of aerospace, military and infrastructure metal parts, employs more than 15 graduates of the college’s computer-integrated machining program.

The company has worked closely with the college for a number of years and has donated other tools and equipment for use in the machining lab.

Despite the current economy, Mid-State is growing and needs to expand its employee base with trained machinists. The company has an ongoing partnership with CMCC to develop the skilled work force it needs to ensure its continued growth.

“We discovered several years ago that the key to our survival and now growth is diversification and that means bringing global contracts back to our shop in Maine,” said Jeffery Farley, manager of manufacturing, Mid-State Machine Products.

He said, “We’ve gone out, seen what the need is, then redesigned our plant to be able to fulfill those pieces. To do that, we need highly skilled, quality employees. And you’ve got to have education that will advance along beside you for that.”

The associate degree program in machine tool technology at CMCC offers broad training experience in the metal products industry. Graduates are employed as machine operators, machinists, tool and die makers, quality control inspectors, machine assemblers, machine tool designers, programmer or field service representatives.

Anyone interested in more information should visit www.cmcc.edu or call the admissions office at 755-5273.