Photo by Aila Boyd
By Aila Boyd
aboyd@mainstreetnewspapers.comLuca Forte, a board member of the Eldor Corporation, went on a tour of the new STEM lab at Virginia Western Community College (VWCC) last Wednesday. The tour was coordinated by Botetourt County officials. VWCC STEM Dean Amy White, a Botetourt resident, led the tour of the 72,000-square-foot STEM Building that opened last October.
The Italian company opened its Botetourt location a little over a year ago. Roughly 200 individuals, many of whom are engineers, are employed there. He characterized the Botetourt location as “doing well.” It delivers products to car manufacturers in the United States.
The fact that the college offers dynamic STEM programs that train students with the skills that the company looks for in potential employees played a large role in Eldor’s decision to locate in Botetourt, Forte said. “We were quite impressed by how they educate people, especially in mechatronics,” he said of his original tour of the facility before the company opened its Botetourt location. He said that he especially liked the fact that real-life industry standards are used.
During the original tour, he said that he was surprised to see some of the equipment that Eldor uses at the school. “It’s not that common in Italy. It really impressed us,” he said.
The mechatronics lab looked “very different” from what he saw during his last visit, he added.
