Grace Aerospace (GRACE), an aerospace manufacturer headquartered at Cecil Field in Jacksonville, Florida, has been working with CareerSource Northeast Florida (CareerSource NEFL) since 2018 – most recently, leveraging the organization’s Customized Training program. GRACE received training funds to upskill several employees in the use of a FARO Arm: a versatile tool that allows manufacturers to verify product quality by performing dimensional analysis, computer-aided-design (CAD) comparisons and more
“One of our customers requires that our fabricated metal parts have extremely specific tolerances, referred to as Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T), which is a system for defining the geometry of parts, including their allowable variations,” said GRACE President Pauline Sevigny. “As part of our work, we use a FARO arm to verify that we are
meeting these GD&T requirements. The FARO also provides hardware and software solutions to help employees measure and verify parts against these tolerances. It is quite complex and fairly new to us, so we were looking to build upon our current skillset.”
Customized Training funds allowed four GRACE employees to complete training on the FARO and its associated Verisurf software earlier this year.
Cory Howerton, who joined GRACE full time in its quality department, was among those in the training program. Before being hired full time, Howerton worked at GRACE through SkillBridge, a Department of Defense program that gives transitioning military an opportunity to gain civilian work experience through industry training, apprenticeships or internships.
The FARO training was great and it was nice to have someone to bounce ideas and opinions off of,” Howerton said. “The training gave me a better understanding on how to set up program steps, which I thought was going to be very difficult. After the training was conducted, it opened my eyes on how easy it was to program. Now we have programs for most of the parts on the operations floor, which in return, has almost cut the time in half for inspection.”
Howerton adds that with the programming set up, it comes in handy when training new employees.
“After training was over and the instructor walked away, I was more comfortable with the Verisurf software and capabilities of the FARO ARM,” he said. “It is also nice to have direct access to talk and video chat with FARO when you get stuck in a spot.”
CareerSource NEFL Industry Manager for Manufacturing, Aviation and Aerospace Roben Faircloth has been working with GRACE since they were a JAXUSA prospect.
“We try to make our programs as business friendly as possible, and it’s exciting to see companies use our reimbursement programs to help grow the skills of their workforce…which in turn allows for the growth of the whole company,” Faircloth said.
Through her experience with CareerSource NEFL, Sevigny says the organization’s programs are extremely advantageous to a small business – allowing them to receive funds to accelerate training that they might normally not be able to afford or that could be delayed by budget constraints on their business.
“My incentive as a business owner is having my employees well trained, but it’s also a huge win from an employee standpoint…they’re gaining the skills to increase their resume and help with their professional progress,” Sevigny said. “The Customized Training program builds on the whole idea of upskilling the local workforce, which is what we’ve been able to do with the help of CareerSource Northeast Florida.”
Founded in 2001, Grace Aerospace provides electrical and structural manufacturing and systems integration for commercial and United States military aviation clients.