New Board Members Appointed to the National Institute for Metalworking Skills

The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) is pleased to announce the appointment of four new industry leaders to the NIMS Board of Directors in 2023. They will each serve for three years.

Joanna Dowling is the Director of The Custom Group Center for Manufacturing Technology in Woburn, MA. The Center for Manufacturing Technology is an advanced manufacturing training facility that offers a wide range of customizable certificate-based programs to meet the training needs for manufacturing companies throughout New England.  Joanna brings over 25 years of experience within the manufacturing industry. She is actively involved within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to promote the manufacturing sector and the importance of education and training for sustaining manufacturing in Massachusetts. Joanna holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Merrimack College.

Neil Ashbaugh is President/CEO of New Century Careers (NCC) in Pittsburgh, PA. He has over twenty years’ experience in manufacturing, from the shop floor to human resources and technical training management. Neil learned the manufacturing trade through two four-year state and federally-recognized apprenticeships and became a journeyman grinder and machine operator. Hired by Oberg Industries, Inc. in Freeport, PA, initially as a journeyman precision grinder, he later held corporate positions there in sales and marketing and management roles of increasing responsibility in training and talent development, government projects and new product development.  At NCC, he manages operations and a broad range of programs including apprenticeship, production, sales, marketing, business development, corporate training and talent development, and workforce development. He led two major initiatives from inception — the Group Apprenticeship Program and the New Century Job Shop. He was appointed to the Westmoreland-Fayette County Workforce Investment Board’s (WIB) Next Generation Manufacturing Industry Partnership in 2002.

Ryan Spielman is Director of Manufacturing (Lincoln Campus – Industrial Division) at Woodward, Inc., Fort Collins, CO. Ryan started his career in Manufacturing in 1995 in a small machine shop. In 1998 he joined Woodward Governor as a machinist. After a year he moved into the newly created CI team within Manufacturing Engineering. Through this time, he earned his Associates in Advanced Manufacturing Technology and then Bachelor’s in Management & Leadership. Ryan led various groups within ME including the newly formed Parts Manufacturing Quality team. After several major contract wins, Ryan was tasked with creating and leading a Training Development Team made up of Engineers and front-line Members from Manufacturing. Shortly thereafter he moved to headquarters into the newly created Global Operations Training Manager role.  He was able to influence and grow the company wide Operations Training programs to now have formal onboarding programs in place at all US locations. In July of 2022 Ryan moved into the newly created Director of Manufacturing role at the Lincoln Campus, a part of the Industrial COE, where he leads the Manufacturing Floor.

Stephen B. Leonard is Operations/Program Manager for the Digital Foundry, Penn State, in New Kensington, PA, a new digital manufacturing demonstration and educational facility. He is responsible for developing and managing the workforce development programs designed to provide upskilling/reskilling for unemployed/under-employed and dislocated workers to currently employed and advanced manufacturing engineering staff and manufacturing operations leadership throughout southwestern Pennsylvania. Steve has been a practicing industrial designer and technical innovator for over 35 years. He has demonstrated leadership in design, development, design for manufacture and management of projects that have delivered over $3Bn in value to the organizations he has worked for. Previously Steve worked for Alcoa/Arconic at the Alcoa/Arconic Technology Center (ATC) as the Senior Innovation Leader in Arconic’s Growth & Insights office. He was responsible for orchestrating front-end innovation programs for Arconic and facilitating new growth programs Steve was an adjunct professor for CMU’s Integrated Innovation Institute Master of Integrated Innovation in Products and Services teaching Design for Manufacture, Assembly, and Sustainability. He holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Syracuse University (1985) and a Master of Science in New Product Development from Northwestern University (2004) and is the recipient of 56 US patents.

More About The National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) NIMS is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that was formed in 1995 to develop and maintain a globally competitive American workforce. Its mission is to help organizations improve overall performance by teaching them how to train and validate training with practical experiences that reflect what individuals and teams will face on the job.

www.nims-skills.org

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