Apply Online: MTEC online registration runs through Jan. 5. Visit mtec.mono.k12.wv.us or call 304-291-9240 to find out more
This is why you go to school, Nathan Newbraugh said with a grin on a mellow spring evening in 2019.
He kicked the work-site dust from his boots, unbuckled his tool belt and pulled his graduation gown over his head — all in one efficient motion.
Then, he happily joined his fellow graduates on the stage of WVU’s Creative Arts Center.
His class of completers at the Monongalia County Technical Education Center was readying to go forth, except that Newbraugh was already there.
He came directly from his job to the CAC for the ceremony. The student in the center’s carpentry program had already secured employment with a local contracting company.
It’s not too late to enroll for 2021, if you’re interested.
Online registration runs through Jan. 5.
Visit mtec.mono.k12.wv.us or call 304-291-9240 to find out more.
From its facilities on Mississippi Street, the center offers hands-on instruction on everything from baking a cherry pie to operating a plasma cutter.
MTEC-trained students go to work as automotive technicians and computer game designers.
They graduate as welders or complete the next phase of study on their way to licensed practical nursing.
Its non-traditional students, more often than not, toil in full-time jobs on top of running households and raising children.
Before COVID-19 clamped down, MTEC’s best presented and performed at national competitions, often returning with ribbons and trophies for their achievement.
It’s oftentimes joyfully noisy, also — as evidenced by all the clangs, rattles and chonks in the welding room of instructor Don Robinette.
Robinette teaches the basics, and he also turns students loose on artisan-type projects using a plasma cutter.
Said implement has nothing to do with the blood product, even though MTEC offers a range of courses for students wishing to enter medical professions.
The plasma cutter is a high-tech machine that does the precision sculpting necessary for things such as airplane wings and components for suspension bridges.
It gets its name by way of the super-heated material used to cut the steel for such exact work.
Plasma is the fourth state of matter. Picture ice being heated until it melts into water.
Picture that water being heated more, so it turns into steam, or gas.
Heat the gas even more, and you’ll eventually have plasma.
And it’s that super-heated material which is strong enough and pliable enough to employ the precision cuts necessary for the above infrastructure — along with the unique works of art in metal that Robinette revels in.
He loves the arc of critical thinking that goes into such work, he said previously.
“That’s how it works in the real world,” Robinette said. “Employers are looking for people who know how to think.”
By the time he turned his tassel in 2019, Newbraugh didn’t have to take much time looking for work.
“You learn from the best, and you get hired pretty quick,” he said.
TWEET @DominionPostWV
