NWTI opens $8 million ammonia refrigeration center, marks 50th anniversary

More than 100 people attended an invitation-only event on a chilly Thursday evening (Oct. 30) at Northwest Technical Institute (NWTI) in Springdale to celebrate the opening of its new $8 million Ammonia Refrigeration and Boiler Training Facility and the technical school’s 50th anniversary.

The new 19,000-square-foot training facility offers the only ammonia refrigeration program in Arkansas and features equipment that’s only found in three other facilities in the United States. The building also includes training equipment for boiler, electrical and conveyor systems.

For five decades, NWTI has provided technical workforce education to equip students with the skills needed for jobs in high-demand industries, including automotive technology, industrial maintenance and technical trades, information systems and practical nursing. The new facility expands NWTI’s capacity to prepare students for growing career fields and provides Arkansas businesses with a larger pipeline of skilled workers.

“NWTI’s ammonia refrigeration facility is the only one of its kind in the state of Arkansas,” said NWTI President David Patty. “It signifies our continued focus on short-term industry training, and we’re using this opportunity to get the word out about our exciting current and upcoming training opportunities. Both the grand opening of this amazing facility and NWTI’s 50th anniversary are noteworthy and something to be celebrated.”

Asked what makes the ammonia building unique, Patty said it has a two-stage ammonia refrigeration system.

“A lot of companies utilize that,” he said. “And this is the only facility like it in the state of Arkansas.”

The project to construct the building began in 2018, Patty said. The facility became operational in April when it received its ammonia charge. Patty said the old ammonia building includes the classroom and restroom. The new building is where the hands-on training takes place and can serve between 14 and 20 students. With the two-stage system, NWTI can offer more advanced training courses. An even more advanced course is expected to begin in January, he said. Additionally, two new electrical courses will be launched next week.

“This school has been servicing the region for 50 years, and it was all about workforce development before workforce development was a thing,” Patty said. “And it’s about the skilled trades. It’s about giving people skills so they can go out and support their families.”

He said NWTI is at capacity, and to serve more students, it will need to expand. “We have 40 acres here, and so we would have to expand.”

The school comprises students in the diploma programs and short courses for workforce training. The short courses are four-day courses designed to allow workers to acquire new skills, and NWTI has been expanding this aspect of the school. Patty said the plan is to continue to grow in response to demand.

So far this year, the school has served 127 students in the ammonia program. The number rises to about 140, including the boiler program. NWTI’s campus programs can support about 280 students per year.

Bill Rogers, president of the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, provided some history about NWTI during the event Thursday. He said 50 years ago, the city of Springdale, through the Springdale Industrial Commission, donated 40 acres to the state to establish NWTI. The school’s acronym was NTI, but it has more recently become NWTI.

“I like to tell people that our unwavering support for NWTI really kind of goes back to the fact that workforce and the blue-collar ethic that is Springdale…It’s really in Springdale’s DNA,” he said. “While this institute and school serves all of Northwest Arkansas, Springdale is very proud to have NWTI in our home.”

Mike Rogers, chief workforce officer for Arkansas, was one of the featured speakers at the event. He talked about the skills he and his father learned at NWTI and how this impacted his life.

NWTI is the industrial maintenance focus center for Arkansas, where people come for training on industrial boilers, industrial refrigeration, and industrial automation, Mike Rogers said. This is because of the strength Northwest Arkansas has in manufacturing food and textiles.

He said NWTI has long helped entry-level workers acquire skills and continue their education, and allowed high school students to learn about vocations and make decisions about career pathways. It’s also helped skilled workers receive more detailed training to advance their skills.

NWTI’s industrial maintenance, automation, and refrigeration technician program started in the boiler room, he said. In 2017, Dave Millé, president of Van Buren-based Mid-South Steam Boiler & Engineering Co., donated a boiler to the school “because he saw the importance globally of boiler technicians, awareness exposure to the trades, and how do I find these people that sometimes take five and 10 years to develop.”

At the time, Mike Rogers said he’d worked with Tyson Foods to raise money to build some of the facilities and to relocate the ammonia program from Garden City Community College in Kansas, along with the associated equipment, to NWTI.

“Tyson Foods paid to have all that shipped,” Mike Rogers said. “Then we started to build out the next phase of industrial refrigeration, and from that, we were able to move some of the industrial maintenance and automation equipment from Tyson Foods when they outsourced their training to NWTI. And most recently, it’s been with a Dematic conveyor loop that allows for a whole system.”

“So the concept is to go from theory to fundamentals, to application, to relevance, to seeing the tools, and the equipment, how it all comes together into systems, and then they get the whole piece from the industrial motors to the electrical fundamentals, automation, robotics, conveyance all the way to cold storage,” he said. “And Northwest Arkansas is that place that is positioned with NWTI to provide no cost training even for the remainder of this year and next year in that area because of the importance that is has on Arkansas workforce.”

Mike Rogers said the no-cost training for Arkansas employees is being paid for through the office of Gov. Sarah Sanders’ use of money from the American Rescue Plan Act. The money was used to develop HIRED grants. NWTI’s foundation was one of 19 organizations in Arkansas to receive a share of $48 million in grants as part of the HIRED program. The foundation was given $4 million.

He said the money was distributed to establish focus centers across the state’s diverse regions. The centers provide training for various skill levels to industries prevalent in each region. For Northwest Arkansas, the center is focused on industrial automation, maintenance, electrical and robotics, and refrigeration. Along with the no-cost training for Arkansas employees through 2026, the grant supports the purchase of new equipment, facility upgrades and instructor salaries.

He added that the 50th anniversary “is an amazing milestone.” He said to see the rebrand, “to be agile, nimble to take what has been an amazing legacy and bring it modernized to a place where it’s still serving for what we hope to be the next 50 [years].”