Workbenches installed in new electrical lab

Jim Potter

Montana State University-Northern

Montana State University-Northern will soon be opening its new Greenlee AppleLab, which will allow the electrical program to offer advanced electrical and telecommunication certifications.

This new lab has been in the planning and building stages for almost two years. Faculty and students recently assembles 12 workbenches with caster wheels and vices as well as the tools, which are demonstrated, on the Greenlee/National Coalition of Certification Centers PowerPoint training slides.

The workbenches were purchased with Perkins grant funds that Holly Haas helped acquire.  Related Training Director, Lorren Schlotfeldt, also assisted with the purchase. Greenlee/Emerson, as well as, Crescent Electric Supply of Great Falls provided educational discounts for the workbenches and tools.

Northern is a National Coalition of Certification Center.  Because of that partnership, the university's electrical program is able to offer advanced electrical and telecommunication certifications. This new lab will create a learning environment that will allow the professors to demonstrate proper tools usage.  It will also allow the students to practice these skills prior to taking the test for certification. 

Two summers ago, Northern electrical instructors Trygve Magelssen and Jim Kirkpatrick went to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to get the advanced training needed to offer certification to Northern electrical students in telecommunications, including voice, data, video test and termination certificate; conduit bending, including bending basics and advanced bending certificates; and hole-making, including wire pathways-rotary and wire pathways-knockouts.

These certificates prove the students are competent, which will increase their job opportunities. Students will be able to explore careers in industries such as telecommunications broadband, residential and commercial, construction trades, building maintenance and information technologies.

The lab is located in Brockmann Center Lab 106 and will be incorporated into the residential, commercial and conduit bending classes to improve tool use learning by the students and consolidate the instruction into certificate training. It will also allow for continued program growth and certification opportunities for students to enhance their job portfolio.