CC receives $18,000 grant for industry students

The Casper College machining, manufacturing, and engineering programs recently received a check for an $18,000 grant for manufacturing scholarships from the Gene Haas Foundation. Pictured l-r Rachel Chadderdon, dean for the Casper College School of Business and Industry; Paul Brutsman, engineering technology and design instructor; John Bonewitz, Machine Tool and Tooling Sales Productivity, Inc., and Katie McMillan, grants office coordinator. They are pictured in front of a HAAS UMC 500 – 5 Axis Machining Center used for machining complex parts. (Casper College photo)

Thanks to an $18,000 grant in late 2024 from the Gene Haas Foundation, students in the industry side of Casper College’s School of Business and Industry can complete their education with scholarships.

The Gene Haas Scholarship, awarded to qualifying students, comes from yearly grants the college has received from the Haas Foundation, with all money received going directly to student scholarships. According to Rachel Wright, academic assistant for the Casper College School of Business and Industry, the scholarship theme is “completers.” The recipients are a mix of continuing students, new traditional students, and nontraditional students.

“This grant is a point of pride for our machining, manufacturing, and engineering programs,” said Paul Brutsman, engineering technology and design instructor. After their initial award, each student receives a scholarship after successfully completing each additional semester, up to four semesters. “This encourages our students to achieve a degree after they have completed a certificate, hence the ‘completers’ theme for the scholarship,” Brutsman noted.

From 2020 to now, 43 students have received the scholarship. The scholarship has been awarded 63 times because many students have received the scholarship multiple times. The average GPA of these students is 3.36. Sixteen students received the scholarship during the 2024-2025 school year.

According to Brutsman, the college first applied for grant funds in 2019. In 2020, Casper College received a $10,000 grant for student scholarships. That figure went to $12,000 in 2021 and 2022. The grant increased in 2023 to $15,000.

The grant requires each winning institution to have a program that uses HAAS CNC machine tools in a manufacturing program, providing instructor involvement with students.

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