Seco Tools Donates Over $400,000 in Tools to Trade Schools
The company explains that while they have normally recycled such unused-but-discontinued tooling, this year it decided to donate them.
Seco Tools LLC (Troy, Michigan) has donated almost half a million dollars in metalworking tools to training centers, community colleges, technical programs and high schools in the Midwest and Pennsylvania. The donated tools included a variety of new or unused solid-carbide, high speed steel (HSS) and cobalt end mills.
“Throughout the year, we perform audits of our warehouse stock to clear out discontinued items, over-produced specials and other products that cannot or are unlikely to be sold in the future,” says Dale Higgins, technical support specialist at Seco. “In the past, we have recycled these tools to recoup a portion of our costs, but this year we decided that giving the entire $412,035 worth of tooling to schools that are training the future workforce is really more valuable to us and to our industry.”
One recipient of Seco’s donation, the Cleveland Industrial Training Center, is a CNC training facility located within an actual manufacturing facility in Cleveland, Ohio, with a second facility in Akron. The centers provide concentrated CNC training that prepares 180 graduates each year with the skills they need to program and run machines and produce accurate parts. The program is in its 22nd year. “We often get donations, but certainly not of this quantity and quality,” explains Tim Duffy, training center president. “The scope and breadth of what Seco donated will take care of us for years to come for certain categories of tools.”
Seco donated tools to 11 other institutions besides the Cleveland center. Instructors expressed gratitude for the cutters, which in some cases would have been unobtainable due to budget constraints.
