SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
EDINBURG — Announcing a landmark workforce initiative Monday, UTRGV revealed it will spend $5 million in federal funding teaching 250 Rio Grande Valley residents to fluently operate a $4 million advanced manufacturing lab that they will then be politely asked to leave exactly where they found it.
The program, Empower-RGV, will train workers and at least 50 small Valley manufacturers on equipment worth roughly $4 million — a figure university officials repeated seven times while gesturing at a CNC machine like a weatherman pointing at a hurricane that will never make landfall in your garage.
‘You May Look at the Robot. You May Even Speak to It.’
Officials stressed that local shop owners who cannot afford such equipment will finally get hands-on access to it, provided the hands are then washed and the equipment is returned to its shelf in the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing, where it will resume being a $4 million number someone says out loud during grant announcements.
“This is transformational,” said UTRGV spokesperson Dr. Alma Trinidad-Fuentes, who was not appointed to speak for the university but did so with the confidence of a woman watching a federal wire transfer clear. “For years, Valley manufacturers have been told they can’t afford advanced robotics. Now, for free, they can learn to love something they can’t have. That’s not a deficit. That’s a relationship.”
The training is expected to support the creation of 50 new jobs, most of them the jobs of people teaching the next grant’s worth of people.
Graduates will receive a certificate confirming they are among the most qualified CNC operators in South Texas, plus a laminated photo of the machine for their wallets.
Valley Shops Respond: ‘So It’s Like a Museum, But With Homework’
One Harlingen machine shop owner, who asked to be identified only as Reyna, said she enrolled her whole crew. “We’re very excited. My guys will learn to run a five-axis mill they will see again only if one of my grandkids enrolls at UTRGV in 2047,” she said. “But now when a customer asks if we do precision aerospace work, I can say, ‘Not here, but I know a place.'”
Classes are free and begin in the spring, giving officials several months to draft the program’s signature course, “Advanced Detachment: Saying Goodbye to the Lathe,” a three-week seminar held in the parking lot, facing away from campus.
At press time, the university had applied for a second $3 million grant to train graduates of the first program to stop pressing their faces against the lab’s windows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I use the lab after I graduate?
A: Yes, in your heart, and in the certificate’s footer, which reads “Skills transferable to any lab you personally purchase.”
Q: Where did the $5 million go?
A: Approximately $4 million of understanding, $900,000 of spring, and $100,000 of lamination.
