TSTC Marshall gets new machinist program expansion

Texas State Technical College in Marshall students will have a new piece of machinery to work with later this summer after a special delivery was made at the campus on Tuesday.

TSTC Marshall Provost Bart Day was on hand with Precision Machining Technology Instructor Danny Nixon and other campus administrators and staff on Tuesday as the college received a new UMC 500 Haas CNC machine.

The 12,500 pound, $170,000, 5-axis machine was delivered to the campus and will now have Haas representatives sent out to the college to properly set up the machine before students will begin using it late this summer.

“This machine will bring us more in line with where manufacturing is right now in the industry,” Nixon said Tuesday.

The technical college’s precision machining technology course, which will also become available to Marshall High School dual credit students through Mav Tech this fall, will allow students to earn a certificate or an associate’s degree.

The two year associate’s degree program would see many student graduates from the college get hired on as a machinist right after graduation, Nixon said.

“Companies like Komatsu and Space X would hire machinists,” Nixon said. “Machinists can make anywhere from about $42,000 a year starting out, all the way up to about $70,000 or $80,000, depending on their time on the job an experience.”

Day said almost everyone, every day comes into contact with or uses something a machinist made.

“Machining nowadays consists mostly of programing and learning these CNC mills,” Day said. “Almost everything you touch in daily life, from cell phones to engines, mining equipment, car rims, boat impellers and aerospace defense, a machinist has had to get it to that final product.”

Nixon said the precision machining technology program has more than doubled its number of machines in the past several years, adding several new CNC mills.

Day said TSTC Marshall is in the progress of expanding several of its programs. The college is currently renovating its campus facilities to provide larger classroom areas and larger lab areas in several programs.

“As we shift more to performance based education, we want to provide labs both day and night to accommodate more of the non-traditional students,” Day said. “Post the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing more of a need for a hybrid education experience, allowing students to take a mixture of online lecture and day or night time labs, working around their work or family life.”

To learn more about the programs offered at TSTC Marshall, visit the college’s website at www.tstc.edu/campuses/marshall.