Navajo Technical University to Build Center for Advanced Manufacturing

The Navajo Technical University (NTU), Crownpoint, New Mexico, has announced their procurement of a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish the NTU Center for Advanced Manufacturing, as well as the development of an associate of applied science degree and a four-year degree in mechanical engineering.

The new center will house courses on 3D modeling and simulation, polymer and metal additive manufacturing, and advanced manufacturing post-processing techniques. It will also focus on materials testing and characterization, and metrology, or the science of measurement. NTU was awarded a $1 million grant by the U.S. Department of Commerce with matching funds of $1.5 million from the Navajo Nation to build a metrology and materials testing center within the Center for Advanced Manufacturing, which H. Scott Halliday, director of NTU's Center for Digital Technologies, plans to make a certifiable lab to assist in student learning.

The Navajo Nation’s Division of Economic Development hopes to generate 500 high-tech, high wage jobs in partnership with industries like Boeing Corporation’s Metal AM Technologies in El Segundo, California. NTU is also looking to bring in opportunities with companies such as Sigma Labs, LLC, in Santa Fe, N.M., Optomec, LLC, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and V&M Global Solutions, LLC, in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico.

NTU has plans to break ground on the new center in early spring 2019 with the hopes the center will be functional by the end of the year.