“Choosing among the applications is extremely difficult, as we continue to see an enormous amount of need among programs teaching greater numbers of students with fewer tools,” said Betsy Van Duyne, who manages Hypertherm’s educational program. “This makes getting the right equipment into the hands of students even more critical as many would not have the opportunity to learn how to use a modern plasma system without a grant like this.”
The 2018 Spark Something Great grant recipients are as follows:
- Arkansas Welding Academy - Jacksonville, AR
- Cedar Community Secondary School - Nanaimo, BC (Canada)
- Central High School - Independence, OR
- Fowler High School - Fowler, CA
- Homedale High School - Homedale, ID
- McAllen Memorial High School - McAllen, TX
- Northwest High School - Opelousas, LA
- Rogers High School - Toledo, OH
- SouthTech Academy - Boynton Beach, FL
- White County Central High School - Judsonia, AR
In addition to its Spark Something Great Grant, Hypertherm supports schools by offering educational discounts to teachers and students, and by making its plasma curriculum available for free download. To date, teachers from more than 1,600 schools have acquired the lesson plans helping standardize the teaching of plasma cutting to thousands of students. Hypertherm also offers its ProNest for Education program which places its ProNest CAD/CAM nesting software in schools. Since launching the program two years ago, Hypertherm has donated 79 ProNest packages valued at more than $13 million.
Hypertherm designs and manufactures industrial cutting products for use in a variety of industries such as shipbuilding, manufacturing, and automotive repair. Its product line includes cutting systems, in addition to CNC motion and height controls, CAM nesting software, robotic software and consumables. Hypertherm systems are trusted for performance and reliability that result in increased productivity and profitability for hundreds of thousands of businesses. The New Hampshire based company’s reputation for cutting innovation dates back 50 years to 1968, with Hypertherm’s invention of water injection plasma cutting. The 100 percent associate owned company, consistently named a best place to work, has more than 1,400 associates along with operations and partner representation worldwide. Learn more at www.hypertherm.com.