The Western Maricopa Education Center (West-MEC) has unveiled what it says is the nation’s first and only K-12 advanced manufacturing cleanroom.
A cleanroom is a highly controlled environment that minimizes airborne contaminants like dust and regulates temperature and air pressure to support sensitive production processes. West-MEC, a public career and technical education school district, is bringing that experience to its students.
Superintendent Scott Spurgeon said a few years ago, he sat down with the chief human resource officer at TSMC.
“For every engineer that TSMC hires, you've got three or four technicians that are needed to support that position,” Spurgeon said. “So we had a conversation about ‘What could West-MEC do to provide workforce in the semiconductor industry?’”
TSMC engineers worked directly with the school district to design its new Advanced Manufacturing program.
“Because you can give me a job description all day long, that doesn't necessarily mean that's what students are actually going to be doing or workers will be doing,” Spurgeon said. “So he gave us an engineer or two throughout the process and we wrote the program specifically for the skill set necessary for students to be successful in the semiconductor industry.”
Shawn Cravalho is a senior at his home high school and will be one of the first graduates of West-MEC’s new program in May of 2027.
“This is the first cleanroom available to high schoolers in the country so we get to learn skills, very unique skills here that kind of separate us from everybody else,” Cravalho said.
Cravalho’s dream job is to work in a cleanroom at TSMC. The school expects to eventually turn out about 250 technicians per year.
Spurgeon said even though the students are being trained in advanced manufacturing for the semiconductor industry in three areas: equipment, maintenance and facility technicians, they can transfer those skills to any advanced manufacturing environment across America.
“So they would be writing code, monitoring production lines, fixing and servicing equipment, and just supporting the positions in a place where they produce things,” Spurgeon said.
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