NAMII, YSU Get OK for $2.1M Third Frontier Grant
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The State Controlling Board voted Monday to approve $2.1 million in Third Frontier program funds to Youngstown State University for the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute.
The institute, which was announced last August as the pilot in a network of centers focusing on manufacturing, was awarded $30 million in federal funds, and the state’s contribution represents part of the matching funds for the $69 million center. The Ohio Third Frontier Commission approved the funding last year.
NAMII, which officially opened in September, will focus on developing additive manufacturing or 3-D printing, a process by which liquid or particle material is added rather than subtracted or molded, as in traditional manufacturing, to create components or castings. The center is housed in a building on the campus of the Youngstown Business Incubator in downtown Youngstown.
Thursday is the deadline for NAMII’s initial call for projects. Next week, its new executive director, Edward A. Morris, will come on board.
In addition to YSU and YBI, partners in NAMII include Lockheed-Martin, Lubrizol, M-7 Technologies, the Timken Co., Kent Displays, the University of Akron, Lorain County Community College and Case Western Reserve University.
In other business Monday, the board approved $369,151 for YSU to contract with Strollo Architects, Youngstown, to provide architectural design services for the renovation of Melnick Hall to accommodate academic and administrative functions of the health and human services program, which will relocate to Melnick from Cushwa Hall. As part of the project, the building’s Rose Melnick Museum, a display of medical tools from the past 75 years, will be relocated from the building’s main floor.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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