Michael Casey Age: 24 Workshops for Warriors San Diego, CA
UNDER THIRTY M
ike Casey spent five years serving his country as a Marine Infantryman. Now, he’s part of another movement to help the United States—the effort to bring back
manufacturing jobs.
After stepping on a pressure plate IED while serv- ing in Afghanistan, Mike spent time recovering at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. It was there that he first heard about Workshops for Warriors, a non- profit organization that provides vocational training for manufacturing careers to returning, wounded, and disabled veterans. A friend of Mike’s at the hospital had been through the program, located just down the street from the Medical Center.
Mike was intrigued. Initially, he planned to stay in the Marine Corps, but he had always been
waterjets, lasers, and SolidWorks. In fact, Mike has been so successful that he is now a Teacher’s Assis- tant for a beginning class—CNC Mill Setup Operations and Programming.
His next step is to become a certified Machining Instructor. “I’ve pretty much taken every machining class available,” Mike says, “so I’m going to eventually instruct the machining classes. I’d like to instruct the programming class.” But Mike’s ambition isn’t limited to Workshops for
“With his hard work, dedication and motivation to learn, he earned over 14 multiple nationally recognized certifcations here at Workshops for Warriors. ... He hopes to becoming a machining instructor.”
interested in engineering and the process of improving things, especially weapons, and he knew the skills he acquired in the Marines would serve him well in manu- facturing. So, despite having no formal manufacturing or engineering experience, he changed course and arrived at Workshops for Warriors a month early to learn everything he could before classes started. That decision certainly paid off. Since starting the program in June 2013, “Mike has been one of our top students,” wrote Education Coordinator Long Huynh in her nomination letter. She credits his success to his hard work, dedication, and motivation to learn. In his short time with the program, Mike has earned 14 nationally recognized certifications, which include pro- gramming, setup, and operations of CNC mills, lathes,
Warriors. He already has his Associate’s Degree under his belt, and is currently taking math and CAD classes at San Diego City College. He hopes to transfer to San Diego State University and earn a me- chanical engineering degree. “I started taking classes while I was at the hospital,” Mike said.
“I was able to get all the general classes out of the way and right now I’m just finishing the required courses specific for engineering—math mostly.” Ultimately, after he receives his degree, he would like to work in the aerospace industry. But for now, he’s “taking advantage of the area and all the transition op- portunities” for veterans—a group whose skills, he says, he has complete confidence in.
“Being a veteran, I just have a lot of confidence in the ability of veterans,” Mike said. “I think sometimes people think that those skills, infantry skills, don’t translate to the civilian side, but I really feel that the skills and the character learned there can’t be learned anywhere else and that they’re valuable and appli- cable everywhere.” ME
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ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com | July 2014
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