A recent donation to Crookston High School has left Industrial Tech Teacher Travis Oliver at almost a loss for words. If you know Oliver or have talked to him, that is harder than you think. The donation came from Northern Valley Machine Inc. of East Grand Forks in the form of the Hurco VM2. Thursday, we visited with Oliver as well as Frank and Dustin Walski of Northern Valley Machine to learn more about this generous donation. “Northern Valley Machine does machine work, and we do automation; we do design and build fixtures for various companies that make things,” says Frank Walski. “This is a CNC Machining Center where we are able to mill parts out of steel, plastic, and anything like that. It has drilling and tapping capabilities. Anything you can think of, we can machine it.”
Frank Walski explained that CNC means Computer Numerical Control. Of course, anything with a computer in the name is never cheap. “Right now, it is probably worth about $40,000,” says Walski. “When it was new, it was about $85,000. You can’t tell by looking at it that it isn’t new. Northern Valley Machine Inc. took the machine apart, cleaned, painted, and detailed it, and it looks like it just came off the showroom floor.
We had to ask how the machine got into its place in the metal shop, as it is not tiny. “We actually had Senske Trucking come, and they loaded up the machine over in East Grand Forks,” says Dustin Walski. They volunteered their time to load it up and truck it over here.” Northern Valley Machine loaded and unloaded the truck by bringing along their forklift to complete the job.
What kinds of things will the school be able to do with the CNC Machining Center? “Looking forward, at this point in time, it’s more introductory than anything for the students,” says Oliver. “Down the road, I would like to have a portion of one or two classes that work with this machine on a certain time frame, six, eight, twelve weeks, whatever it takes.” Oliver talked about how having this machine can help some students interested in fields where machines like this are used daily. “If down the road a student wanted to go to college for this or to go directly to work for somebody, they would have a little bit of background in some of this CNC Millwork.”
Excited seems to be an understatement for how Oliver feels about this donation to Crookston High School and his classrooms. “Oh, man, I can’t express my appreciation more,” says Oliver. “I ended up touring Northern Valley Machine with some students a few years ago, and we started the conversation of, what do you need from students, what would you like to see, and this has trickled into a great relationship and a donation that nobody else, and I have worked with a lot of good companies, but nobody else has made this kind of donation to the high school before.”
Oliver says getting the machine up and running will take some time. He is waiting for an electrician to visit the school and see what is needed to hook the machine up. Even then, he says there is some training to be done on his part and is planning to get some hands-on training, maybe this summer, so he can instruct his students on how to use and respect the CSC Machining Center. Also, Oliver says he plans to have an open house at some point so parents, students, and residents can visit the school and see what a great piece of equipment the school now has at its fingertips.
Oliver would like to thank Northern Valley Machine Inc. for their generous donation. Also, a big thank you to Jim Senske at Senske and Sons Trucking for transporting the CSC Machining Center to Crookston. Oliver also provided a link to Stone Machinery, a company that distributes these machines and provides training on their uses, and a YouTube link if anyone is interested in seeing a CSC Machining Center in action.
Northern Valley Machine https://www.northernvalleymachine.com/
Training Company https://stonemachinery.com/
