Haas Automation Europe Experiences Surge in CNC Technology Investment for Education

Zaventem, Brussels. March 31st 2009: The global economic downturn is causing European governments to reassess their national priorities in favour of designing and making products as a means of long-term and sustainable wealth generation. As a result, schools and colleges around the European continent are investing in the latest CNC machine tool technology from Haas Automation Europe (HAE) and its Haas Technical Education Centre (HTEC) partners.

‘We are currently working on 25 new HTECs to open before the end of this year, everywhere from Portugal to Belarus, Russia and Sweden,’ says Mr. Bert Maes, HTEC coordinator at Haas’ Brussels headquarters. ‘National governments are allocating millions of Euros to invest in CNC machine tools and other manufacturing technology, to retool schools and colleges and to prepare students for careers in industry.’

Originally established in the USA and Canada, the HTEC program was conceived as a way of helping young people to access rewarding and lucrative futures in precision engineering by giving them the opportunity to train on the latest and the best CNC machine tools. Haas Automation Europe has already supplied more than 400 CNC machine tools to European schools on which an estimated 4000 students are trained annually.