From me to you
This week, community college leaders from across the country sat down together as part of the National Network for Microelectronics Education to work one question: how do we build the nation’s future semiconductor workforce?
The talk ran across student engagement, industry partnerships, faculty collaboration, and workforce pathways. The throughline was simple. Community colleges are central to preparing the next generation of technicians, engineers, and innovators. It was good to see so many people in one room doing that work.
A special shout-out to our NNME Node leaders, who are connecting educators, industry, workforce organizations, and students across the country:
NNME South: Alyssa Reinhart
NNME Pacific Intermountain: Kurtis Cantley
NNME Northeast: Bob Geer
NNME Southwest: Olga Teran
This workforce is being built through collaboration, and community colleges are leading the way. Thank you to everyone who joined. I am excited about what is ahead.
Jared
|
|
Student Opportunities & Job Listings
Five verified openings this week across semiconductors and optical fiber, organized by region, with community-college pathways called out where they exist. One role is decoded below.
Semiconductors, Mountain West (Idaho)
Micron, Process Technician (Idaho Fab 1)
Boise, ID · rate not posted · community-college eligible via the Associate path
Micron, Facility Water Services Technician
Boise, ID · rate not posted · Associate degree plus maintenance experience
Photonics & Optical Fiber, Southeast (North Carolina)
Corning, Manufacturing Shift Technician · decoded below
Wilmington, NC · $48,250–$78,285/yr · community-college eligible
Corning, Manufacturing Process Technician
Wilmington, NC · $72,744–$100,023/yr · leans experienced
Spotted via the NC Biotech Center job board
Corning, Maintenance Technician (Night Shift)
Hickory, NC · $29.75–$34.50/hr · apprenticeship or trade graduates
|
🔍 ROLE DECODED THIS WEEK
Corning, Manufacturing Shift Technician
📍 Wilmington, NC · optical fiber · $48,250–$78,285/yr (posted)
What you would do. You are the first call when production equipment acts up, diagnosing electrical, controls, and mechanical problems and driving them to a fix. You watch line performance, catch process issues early, run preventive maintenance, and direct maintenance staff through repairs and installs. This sits in Corning’s Optical Communications segment, the optical fiber and cable side.
How it maps to the KSAs. This role lines up directly with the MNT-EC Maintenance Technician KSA. The posting’s core duties show up as specific skills in that guide: measuring voltage, current, and resistance with a multimeter (S-1), reading wiring diagrams and schematics (S-10), recognizing electrical and electronic faults (S-7), running preventive maintenance (S-8), and troubleshooting and repairing systems down to fiber optic cables (S-9, S-13). If your program teaches to that KSA set, your graduates are already pointed at this job.
What it pays. Corning posts $48,250 to $78,285 a year right on the listing. That is the employer’s number, not an estimate. For national context, the BLS median for the closest occupation, Industrial Machinery Mechanics, was $63,510 in May 2024.
How you get there. A two-year electrical, mechanical, or controls Associate degree is the preferred way in, which is the community-college lane. The alternate route is a high school diploma plus five or more years of manufacturing experience. From here the path runs to senior or lead technician, then equipment or process engineering technician. View the role.
|
With enormous appreciation to Tiffany Kimoto, Executive Director of The Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech, for all her help building this week’s job roundup.
|
|
Community Shout-Out: Dr. Matthias Pleil and the UNM MTTC Team
Hands-on does not get more hands-on than this. Over one intensive week at the University of New Mexico’s Manufacturing Training and Technology Center, students in the MNT-EC AT3 Microfabrication Short Course did not just watch, they built. Traveling from Wisconsin, Ohio, and California, they fabricated working micro pressure sensors from start to finish, including cleanroom safety, photolithography, wet and dry etching, frontside and backside alignment, sputter deposition, SEM imaging, electrical characterization, and a first taste of wire bonding and packaging. That is the kind of experience that builds confidence and prepares the next generation of technicians, engineers, and researchers for careers in semiconductors, MEMS, and advanced manufacturing. Dr. Matthias Pleil is well known to this community, so we thought you would enjoy seeing what he and his team pulled off. Way to go, Matthias and team. This is what MNT-EC is all about.
|
|
For the Classroom: Free Microsystems Modules
Want to bring that kind of hands-on cleanroom work to your own students? Dr. Pleil’s longstanding Support Center for Microsystems Education offers a free library of learning modules covering MEMS fundamentals, fabrication, safety, and the same pressure-sensor process behind this week’s Shout-Out. Short readings paired with hands-on activities, ready for the classroom.
|
|
|
We shared this SIA report last week. Here is the positive news inside the same numbers.
|
✂ Clip & Send
By 2030, about 26,400 technician jobs in the U.S. semiconductor industry are projected to be within reach of workers holding a certificate or two-year degree, not a four-year degree. With so many of these roles going unfilled at current graduation rates, community colleges are one of the fastest pathways into America’s growing chip industry.
Source: SIA and Oxford Economics, “Chipping Away”
|
|
|
One Question for You
When community college leaders from four NNME nodes got together to talk workforce development, here is some of what came out of the room:
|
Ideas become partnerships.
Partnerships become opportunities.
Opportunities become the next generation of microelectronics talent.
|
What would you add? Tell us the outcomes you see happening.
List your outcomes here
|
|
