MALTA — In June 2016, the DeKalb County Community Foundation donated funding to the Kishwaukee College Welding Technology program towards the purchase of a metal shear. On March 2, Anita Zurbrugg, Program Director for DCCF, toured the facilities with Dr. Laurie Borowicz, Kishwaukee College President, Bill Nicklas, Executive Director of the Kishwaukee College Foundation, and Dr. Joanne Kantner, Interim Executive Dean of Learning Services, to see the metal shear in use.
“This is an excellent example of the community partnerships working together to train and educate our future workforce. DCCF stepped in to help our program have the equipment required for faculty to teach these skills to our students and meet the needs of local business and industry. We are very grateful for their generosity,” Dr. Borowicz said.
A metal shear can cut large sheets of metal up to ¼-inch thick into the size necessary for a specific project. The shear helps students to better develop their welding and fabrication skills on larger scale projects. Larger scale projects are more the norm in the workplace.

“The Welding Technology program has grown significantly to meet the local employer demand for welders and fabricators,” Zach Caccia, Welding Tech faculty at Kishwaukee College, stated. “This shear has helped our students learn to fabricate actual parts like they will have to do on the job. We are grateful to DCCF for the grant that helped us purchase this addition to our program equipment.”
The complete purchase of the metal shear was made possible by the DCCF grant as well as donations from the Kishwaukee College Foundation and Perkins federal vocational grant funding.
For more information on the Welding Technology Program at Kishwaukee College, contact Zach Caccia at 815-825-9703 or at zachery.caccia@kishwaukeecollege.edu.
For more information on the DeKalb County Community Foundation, visit http://dekalbccf.org/.