AU Technical Assistance Program Showcased in Mobile

Nearly 100 representatives from southern Alabama manufactures and municipalities gathered this week at the Jon Archer Agriculture Center in Mobile for a one-day development partnership meeting designed to provide business and civic leaders with information about technical assistance, workforce training and cutting-edge technologies available through Auburn University's Samuel Ginn College of Engineering.

Participants had a chance to learn more about the Auburn Engineering Technical Assistance Program (AETAP), a coalition of the school's engineering departments that provides technical assistance, training, innovative research and other services to industry. They also had an opportunity to visit with representatives from a variety of engineering disciplines such as aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, industrial and system engineering, and mechanical engineering to discuss manufacturing issues.

Auburn engineering professor and AETAP director, P.K. Raju, explains that since it's founding in 1998 AETAP has provided technical assistance to almost 700 manufacturing groups, with an economic impact of an average of $9 million per year.

The Mobile meeting, sponsored by the County Extension Service, AETAP, and Volkert & Associates, targeted industries in the area that hope to benefit by the recent announcement that the city's Brookley Industrial Complex has been selected by EADS North America as the site for their KC-330 advanced tanker U.S. production facility. An Airbus Engineering Center will be co-located with the future production facility and is scheduled to begin operations in 2006.