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Central Community College (), Columbus, Nebraska, introduced two two-week classes in “bootcamp style” that helps plastics novices learn basic concepts. The first class required eight students to reach capacity but attracted nine students overall. The classes — Plastic Injection Molding Foundations and Plastic Injection Molding Concepts — utilize CCC’s 4,000-ft² plastics lab, which features five injection molding machines.

CCC’s plastics program includes RJG training for current plastics professionals as well as a 12-credit certificate in Plastics Engineering Technology. Source (all images): CCC

Karl Anderson, CCC’s director of plastic injection molding, says was initiated in 2018 when Columbus’ biggest employer — Becton, Dickinson & Co. — reached out to the school to help it create a local pipeline of skilled workers. More recently, CCC was awarded a grant to help it promote and recruit its molding training among English-as-a-second-language populations.

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“We are very happy to report that the class was filled,” Andersson says, “and actually, the demand was such that we opened it to one extra student. We consider this a great success as recruiting for plastics classes can be a real challenge.”

CCC offers a 12-credit certificate in Plastics Engineering Technology, focusing on injection molding, which can be “laddered” into a diploma or degree program.

After meeting with injection molding training and technology supplier RJG at NPE 2018, CCC agreed to embed RJG education into its curriculum when the training lab was completed in early 2020. Since 2021, more than 150 have taken part in the RJG workshops, with an ongoing goal of having around 40 participate annually. Workshops include 10-day Master Molder, with the next class in August, and the four-day Fundamentals of Systematic Molding, with two sessions in July and one in August.

Craig Potthast, CCC’s plastics trainer and coordinator, was award the Qualified Trainer of the Year Award from RJG for teaching 54 students between Sept. 1, 2022, and Aug. 31, 2023.

Students participate in the “sink-or-swim” minilab as part of CCC’s new bootcamp, experimenting with which plastics float and which sink as part of an introduction to the material.