ERIE – Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, opened its $16.5 million, 60,000-square-foot Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Center today, July 20.
According to a press release, AMIC is a collaborative research facility designed to advance the college’s “open lab” model of learning and discovery, with academic and industry partners co-located in shared space.
Neal Asbury, chief executive of The Legacy Companies and host of the nationally-syndicated talk radio show “Made in America,” was the featured speaker at the opening. Penn State Behrend Chancellor Ralph Ford and J. Scott McCain, chairman of the college’s Council of Fellows, also offered remarks.
AMIC is the new home of Penn State Behrend’s mechanical engineering and industrial engineering programs. The building’s academic wing includes 27 faculty offices, five classrooms, two specialty work areas and an advanced manufacturing lab. According to the press release, an additional lab houses “the region’s most powerful environmental scanning electron microscope,” purchased with funding by the National Science Foundation.
The building’s manufacturing wing is reserved for industry tenants, with nearly 19,000 square feet of production and office space. SKF Aerospace North America will move its Erie operations into the building’s first floor, nearly doubling the size of its previous site in Knowledge Park.
