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Operation Next arms departing service members with manufacturing job skills

Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT), a Manufacturing USA national innovation institute, in partnership with the National Institute for Metalworking Skills, Amatrol, and the Gene Haas Foundation, has announced the launch of Operation Next, a new initiative for equipping military veterans with the skills and credentials needed for jobs in precision machining and industrial technology.

This program provides high-level technical training to separating service members while they are still on active duty, moving them to a civilian career in the shortest time possible and connecting them with some of the more than half-million open manufacturing jobs. It brings market leaders in manufacturing training together in a full-service online learning platform that combines self-directed virtual learning with hands-on lab work and gives service members foundational knowledge, practical real-world skills, and national industry credentials.

Operation Next will launch as a pilot program at Fort Campbell, Ky., and transition 101 soldiers to open jobs in machining and industrial technology. Local partners include the nonprofit organization Workforce Essentials, which will manage operations, and Tennessee College of Applied Technology, where soldiers will complete lab work. The program will connect these separating soldiers to the real world of work through plant tours and job shadows offered by partnering employers.

LIFT is a Detroit-based public-private partnership committed to the development and deployment of advanced lightweight metal manufacturing technologies and implementing education and training initiatives to better prepare the workforce today and in the future. It is funded in part by the Defense Department, with management through the Office of Naval Research.