Thanks to a nearly $1.9 million investment from the City of Corpus Christi, students at Del Mar College will soon receive more equipment and tools to be successful in their future careers.
On Tuesday, Corpus Christi City Council approved and awarded the money to Del Mar College Foundation after the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation (CCREDC) advised the request. The monies will come from Type B funding and will be used to enhance and expand five of Del Mar's most sought-after training programs.
"All of these different programs are going to be receiving assets, hard assets that help their students be able to have hands-on training," Denise Kaufman, Del Mar College Foundation Donor Advising Officer said. "Those supported five programs are all going to be receiving items that are state of the art and allow our students to be prepared to step right in to the workforce.”
These are the college programs that will see the distributed investment:
- Industrial Instrumentation- $728,000
- Artificial Intelligence and Geospatial Visualization Laboratory- $128,000
- Engineering and Robotics- $154,370
- Chemistry Laboratory Technicians- $532,500
- Industrial Machining- $355,000
Del Mar said more than 1,400 students majored in one of these programs during the Spring semester of 2024. In addition, the college saw at least 396 graduates during the 2023-2024 academic year. They said their goal is to increase the number of graduates to 472 by 2026.
“If we can reduce that time that they are able to not have to fully train an individual to come into the position, that’s the shortening that we would like to see," Kaufman added.
Del Mar College Foundation mentioned at least 85% of students come from and remain in the community. By providing world class education and training to students, the upgrades will keep the college at the forefront as the Coastal Bend and its workforce progress into the future.
“We want to increase that number and continue provide that workforce seemed like a win/win opportunity for Del Mar College and the City of Corpus Christi.”
The Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation issued a detailed statement. This is part of the statement sent to our newsroom:
"Funding for workforce upskilling and training has a direct economic benefit for our region in that it enables us to retain the businesses that we have by ensuring their workforce is job ready. The addition of new equipment and facilities lead to a better trained and more "workforce ready" student, who is equipped to remain in our region and take advantage of the job opportunities brought to our region by the industries investing in our area.”
Del Mar College added that its long-term goal is to enhance and further expand training programs and graduate outcomes to provide more support to local businesses and industries across the coastal bend.
The foundation plans to put the state-of-the-art technology and equipment bought with these funds into the hands of students by 2025.
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