For Immediate Release
July 6, 2011

A $465,000 Grant from the Employment Development Department Will Help Veterans Seeking Engineering Careers

The money will fund a new program at Cañada College that provides vets with advanced math skills.

A $465,000 grant from the California Employment Development Department to the San Mateo County Workforce Investment Board will enable Cañada College to help veterans transition into engineering careers.

The grant will fund San Mateo County’s Bay Bridge to Engineering for Veterans project which will serve recently separated and Gulf War-era veterans in San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Francisco, and Alameda counties. Participants will have field-based skills acquired in the military and an interest in pursuing civilian careers in civil, mechanical, construction, and computer engineering.

“We will help them acquire advanced math skills so that they can transition their military experience to civilian education and eventual employment in an engineering field,” said Amelito Enriquez, professor of mathematics and engineering at Cañada College and the grant’s principal investigator.

The program will enroll a cohort of 35 veterans in a 22-month course sequence beginning this fall. Courses will prepare veterans for lower-division engineering coursework while receiving transfer credits, internship opportunities, career exploration activities, assistance in transitioning their military skills to job opportunities with civilian employers, and a Computer Assisted Design certification that is integrated into their engineering studies.

“Having participants advance through the course sequence together will give them a support network,” Enriquez said. “They will move from high school math to the levels of calculus required for engineering studies in a nine-month period.”

In March, the college opened the new Veteran Resource Opportunity Center providing veterans returning to school with a space to access personalized service and allow them to connect with fellow veterans.

The grant reflects a broad partnership including the San Mateo County Workforce Investment Board, San Francisco State University, Growth Sector, a non-profit statewide workforce intermediary, Swords to Plowshares and employers including NASA, Webcor Builders, Creegan + D’Angelo Infrastructure Engineers and other government and private sector entities to provide paid internship opportunities to help veterans transition their skills to civilian life.

"This funding is extremely important," said San Mateo County Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson. "It brings our county resources--our Workforce Investment Board, County Veterans Services and Cañada College--together to help transition returning veterans into lifetime careers. They've served our country and now our county can better serve them."

At the end of the course, the group will be one academic year from transferring to a public or private college/university and three years from a Bachelors of Science degree in engineering, one of the highest in-demand and best paid occupations. The grant model is particularly designed to promote transfer to a wide variety of engineering programs at Bay Area California State Universities

David Gruber, Director of Growth Sector, noted “While this grant is targeted to veterans, it also provides a model that could open engineering pathways for many of California’s underserved populations. We plan to work with Cañada to expand this strategy elsewhere in the Bay Area and southern California”

Enriquez said the Bay Bridge to Engineering model has strong potential for statewide replication and could help alleviate a critical shortage of engineers as well as assist veterans to transition military skills to long-term civilian careers with outstanding opportunities for educational advancement. Last year, Enriquez received a two-year, $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to help improve other community college engineering programs in California and develop partnerships for joint engineering programs through the use of distance education. Enriquez is a national leader in engineering education at the community college level. He currently serves as the vice chair of the American Society of Engineering Education Two-Year College Division and the vice chair of the American Society of Engineering Education Pacific Southwest Section Executive Board.

Enriquez was also the principal investigator on a $450,000 grant the college received last year from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration designed to improve student success in math and engineering courses by contextualizing the learning by allowing students to conduct research alongside NASA scientists.

"Professor Enriquez relentlessly pursues funds and partnerships to provide engineering education opportunities to San Mateo County students, and to improve the output of qualified engineers in California and the nation," said James Keller, interim president at Cañada College. "This grant award is another example of Professor Enriquez’s superb dedication to teaching and learning."

Listen to a KCBS Radio interview with Dr. Enriquez about this program by clicking here.

For more information, contact Robert Hood, Director of Marketing and Public Relations, at hoodr@smccd.edu or 306-3340