Siemens Makes $25 million Grant to Technology Center

The Canadian Valley Technology Center announced this week it has just received a $25 million grant from German-based Siemens AG. Siemens, builder of wind farms across the U.S. including Oklahoma will offer software for development of Computer Aided Drafting and Design students at the center.

It will come in the form of 20 seat licenses for Siemen’s CADD division software called NX 10.

“We are also getting unlimited access to their training portal, as well as, small-market competitor Solid Edge at no additional cost,” explained Alex Smith in an interview with the Yukon Review. Smith teaches CADD at the CV Techn’s Cowan Campus in south Yukon but is unaware of any other technology center offering the NX software training. The NX software is used in automotive design, aircraft development and ship design.

The announcement explained that major users of the Siemens PLM program include the Defense Department, Mercedes-Benz, Fiat-Chrysler and Tinker Air Force Base.

“It’s also the software used by NASA to design the Mars Curiosity Rover,” added Smith.

Siemens PLM software partners with more than 12,000 academic institutions around the world through the GO PLM or Global Opportunities PLM program. It provides software and support to high schools, colleges and universities.

While the focus of the $25 million grant is CADD software, Siemens is also known in Oklahoma for its wind farms. It opened a service center in Woodward in 2012 and also has a distribution warehouse inWichita, Kansas as well as a nacelle assembly plant in Hutchinson, Kansas. It also has a wind-turbine blade manufacturing plant in Fort Madison, Iowa, a service center in Houston and a research and development center in Boulder, Colorado.