McKenzie Chamber Members Tour TCAT Henry/Carroll Facilities

McKENZIE (October 22) — Continuing Manufacturing Month celebrations, members from the McKenzie Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Development Board toured McKenzie’s Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) Henry/Carroll campus Wednesday, October 22. Instructors and select students guided the present chamber members through their campus’ classrooms and labs and spoke about their curriculum.

TCAT Henry/Carroll is a training facility designed to simulate the occupational environment found in potential places of employment. The McKenzie campus offers seven full-time educational skill programs: administrative office technology; automotive technology; heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) and refrigeration; industrial maintenance/integrative automation technology; information technology systems management; machine tool technology; and welding technology.

The tour began in the HVAC/refrigeration room, and instructor Darrell Pittman showed the tour group all of the HVAC and refrigeration units students use for practice. Twenty students attend Pittman’s class, and there is a 50-person waiting list for the class.

Students attend the HVAC/refrigeration class for 12 months to receive an HVAC diploma, and some students stay an additional four months to receive training in commercial light refrigeration or light commercial air conditioning.

The next stop was the machine tool technology room. Students Jonathan Fuentes and Brantley Nanney led the tour, stepping in for instructor Zak Crider. Fuentes and Nanney explained the role of a machine tool technician and the overall machining process.

Nanney showed the tour group a digital representation of how their machines can create products. Chamber members observed 3D printed products Crider made as a physical representation of the class’ work.

Fuentes told the group, “Job security’s always been a big thing for me…There’s not a lot of automated processes that could take this job.”

Students also led the automotive technology tour, stepping in for instructor Shanna Franklin who was helping students with a project. Student Eric Rogers showed the tour group around the facility, stopping in a room containing several practice automotive systems.

The automotive technology class is a fourteen-month program at TCAT Henry/Carroll, and most graduating students are matched with an employer upon graduation.

David Earley, welding technology instructor, led the next tour. Earley recently earned certification from the American Welding Society as a Certified Weld Educator, becoming one of three or four in the state to achieve such a feat.

TCAT Henry/Carroll’s welding technology class has 27 students, 15 of which are full-time students, and a 50-person waitlist.

The next stop on the tour was the industrial maintenance integrated automation facility. Instructor Jason Bloodworth spoke with chamber members about his program’s curriculum. The industrial maintenance integrated automation is a full-time, 16-month program in which students gain experience in electronics, electrical, pneumatics, hydraulics, motor controls, programmable controllers, robotics, machine shop and related math.

Next was the information technology systems management classroom and lab room. Instructor Tim Fann led the tour group into the working lab, which will be demolished and moved to a different room once construction of McKenzie’s new TCAT Henry/Carroll main campus building is complete.

The information technology systems management class is a 20-month program broken up into certification benchmarks. During the first term, students complete the A+ exam on computer building, maintaining, and repairing. The second term is for the network exam which focuses on routing, switching and cabling. The third term is Security+ and Linux, which focuses on data security. The fourth and fifth terms prepare students for the Cisco CCNA exam, which is for higher level networking. Most of Fann’s students become IT specialists for banks, hospitals or manufacturers upon graduation.

Fann has 25 students in the information technology systems management class and a 20-person waitlist.

The last stop on the tour was Maureen Sledd’s administrative office technology classroom, where she teaches nine students. Her class is a 12-month, 30-hour-per-week program. The first term provides students with knowledge to become a general office assistant, and the second term provides students with the administrative support specialist certificate. The class also allows students to pick from four elective diplomas: accounting assistant, administrative assistant, medical administrative assistant and marketing assistant.

Sledd’s current classroom will be demolished and relocated to the new campus building in December 2025 or January 2026.

TCAT Henry/Carroll teaches almost 100 full-time students and roughly 200 part-time, dual enrollment students across its campuses in Carroll, Benton, Henry and Weakley counties. To apply for a program at McKenzie’s TCAT Henry/Carroll campus, prospective students need only to fill out an application and join the waitlist for their preferred class.

The McKenzie Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Development Board takes TCAT Henry/Carroll students to Pottery Direct and Plastic Product Formers for tours Friday, October 24, as part of their Manufacturing Month initiatives.