Gene Haas Foundation offers $1 million scholarship fund for manufacturing students

The scholarships – available immediately in Europe, Canada, USA, and South Africa – are a gift from Gene Haas, the founder and CEO of Haas Automation (picture, left). These new funds were provided to continue Mr Haas' mission to ensure a continuous supply of highly qualified students for manufacturing-based jobs, especially in industries where precision machining is crucial. "By reducing the financial burden for students, we expect them to better focus on high academic achievement," says Mr Haas. "Our goal is to help increase the quality and retention of students in manufacturing training programs across Europe. This is especially important at a time when young people appear to be losing interest in manufacturing-based careers." The scholarship application process, managed by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Education Foundation (SME-EF), is available online. The SME-EF expects to award 950 to 1,000 scholarships this year. Scholarships of €500 to €2,000 are available, depending on the cost of the program of study. Says Mr Bart A Aslin, CEO of the SME-EF: "Applications are made by the school, to which funds are sent directly." A scholarship committee reviews the applications from schools as they are submitted, to ensure the minimum eligibility requirements are met. All applicants meeting the requirements will be awarded a scholarship, as long as funding is available. "As we work to dispel the myth that people with a Bachelor's degreeautomatically make more money than those without, we recognise the importance of creating educational pathways that allow all students the chance to earn a good living, while also helping to fill the existing labour gaps in manufacturing. Funding for programs like the Gene Haas Machining Technology Scholarship allows us to do just that," Mr Aslin concludes. Schools can download the application form at smeef.org (see link, below) and e-mail it to haas@sme.org. The last day for applications is Friday, 1 November, 2013. Haas is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Established in 1983 to manufacture indexers, it launched its Haas VF 1 vertical machining centre at the 1988 IMTS exhibition in Chicago. It shipped its 125,000th machine tool last year, which was also its best year ever. The company produced in excess of 13,300 machines in 2012.