News Photo by Temi Fadayomi Alpena Community College welding instructor Tim Ratz shows ACC Board of Trustees members Joseph Gentry II, John Briggs, and Thomas Townsend the new ventilation system in the Holcim Industrial Education and Welding Center at the college on Thursday. The new center is nearly completed and is only waiting on some additional equipment. It is expected to be ready to hold classes in the upcoming weeks.

ALPENA — Alpena Community College officials on Thursday unveiled the college’s new welding and manufacturing buildings to the ACC Board of Trustees.

The trustees started their tour in the college’s Holcim Industrial Education and Welding Center, where they were shown around by ACC welding instructor Tim Ratz. Once acting as a shared space for both welding and manufacturing, the new center is now completely dedicated to welding.

During the tour, Ratz showed the trustees an improved space with new specialized booths, including one for carbon arc gouging, a downdraft table, and a new ventilation system, among other changes to the space.

According to Ratz, he was given a lot of autonomy to help decide what the center would look like, and a lot of ideas and inspiration for the center came from the Lincoln Electric Welding Technology and Training Center in Ohio.

“The biggest impression that was left on me is that it was at the Lincoln Electric school in Cleveland,” said Ratz. “I spent a lot of time there as a student taking classes, and I got to use its stuff, so it’s like, OK, now I know what we can bring back to ACC.”

Because the center remained under construction when the school year started, Ratz’s students had their class reorganized so they heard lectures while the building was completed. Now that the center is mostly finished Ratz looks forward to giving the students some hands-on learning in the coming weeks.

“Students have been really good,” said Ratz. “I mean, to work with us for eight weeks doing lectures … We’re just going to double up whatever we have to do to get the right amount of lab time again.”

Despite being nearly complete, the welding center is still missing some key equipment, like a plasma table that is meant to emulate the kind of equipment students would use working at companies like the Besser Co.

“We have a plasma oxy fuel burn table, which is the same thing as the Besser Co. next door,” said Ratz. “It’s gonna be here in the beginning of December.”

The trustees were then taken to the Besser Co. Center for Manufacturing Excellence, where they were given a tour by ACC manufacturing instructor Andrew Paad.

Originally the old auto body lab space, the new center is newly filled with equipment for the manufacturing department, including a newly installed projector and windows.

While that center is also waiting on a few additional pieces of equipment, Paad is already able to hold classes in the building.

“We work with electricians and maintenance and we got almost everything hooked up right away, so we’re about 70% done,” said Paad. “There is some equipment that still needs to come in, but we can make do without them. We have a projector and we actually can hold a lot of our class in here.”