WoodLINKS USA and The Woodwork Career Alliance of North America (WCA) announced that the Board of Directors of each group have formally approved combining the two organizations.
Woodshop teacher Dean Mattson, who has parlayed his Salem, OR woodworking class into a learning engine for 450 students, won the Educator of the Year Wooden Globe award at WIC 2013.
The wood industry worker supply chain is tightly linked. Woodworkers in furniture and cabinetry factories often move to custom woodshops or remodelers, and back again. So all wood production segments need to work together to assure we've got the pipeline full.
WoodLINKS USA and The Woodwork Career Alliance of North America (WCA) are exploring a merger of the two wood industry education and training organizations.
As woodshops expand and furniture and cabinet factories reactivate, pressure to find qualified workers rises. The shortage may arise from non-competitive pay scales, suggests one analyst.
Scott Nelson, president of the Woodwork Career Alliance of North America, updates the progress developing a program that will provide woodworkers with a career path.
The mission of the SVHEC’s WoodLINKS program is to prepare students with the knowledge, skills, and foundational concepts necessary to design, engineer, and produce a product using wood as the design medium and incorporating CAD/CAM/CNC technology.
Antigo High School operates its WoodLINKS-affiliated wood education program in an excellent facility geared toward the design and production of cabinetry using modern machining technologies.