Dear Friends,
In our last newsletter, I wrote about our optimism and excitement at the prospect of returning to normal classroom operations and achieving program growth in the wake of COVID-19. My optimism continues to grow. The challenges we’ve faced over the past 15 months have brought our staff closer together and validated our abilities to adapt and overcome as an organization. In a time when just continuing operations would have been considered a success, I am proud to report we have experienced across-the-board growth in student recruiting, facilities expansion, and program development.
In spite of COVID-related societal challenges, we are projecting 45 percent year-to-year growth in our student population, a doubling of our GI Bill revenue, and due to significantly increased demand, we have grown from 18 to 44 fully operational welding booths in our welding lab. We launched an intermediate welding curriculum to expand our existing welding program and are poised to launch our intermediate machining pilot course to expand our CNC machining program in the Fall. We currently have 65 students enrolled in our Summer 2021 class who upon graduation in August will bring our total program graduates and lives changed to over 900 since Workshops’ inception.
We continue to enjoy significant success in our efforts to generate national awareness of our work. Workshops for Warriors was featured on CBS News in 110 markets across our nation on Memorial Day and we were featured in a second national segment on Fox & Friends. Our successful Fireside Chat series with industry leaders debuted with an episode featuring General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt followed by a new episode with Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co.'s CEO, Jim Hoffman.
With the current bipartisan and national focus on infrastructure development and the revitalization of American manufacturing, the need for a skilled manufacturing workforce has never been more clear. It is imperative that Workshops for Warriors expand our operations and facilities to meet this call. We cannot do this without your continued financial support.
We need you to continue sharing our work and asking your networks to support us as well. Together, I know we can rebuild American manufacturing, one veteran at a time!
Thank you for helping us achieve our mission.
Respectfully,
Hernán Luis y Prado
