About 1,500 miles south of Cal Poly Pomona, in Guadalajara, Mexico, Dr. Victor Okhuysen learned his family’s trade: metalcasting. Today, Okhuysen, the interim associate dean for the College of Engineering and a professor in industrial and manufacturing engineering, shares the timeless craft with college students, local K-12 schools and career seekers in his community with METAL.

For more than 125 years, Okhuysen’s family foundry, Corporación POK, was an industry staple. Founded by Okhuysen’s ancestor Francisco Okhuysen, the steel manufacturer produced large castings for sugar mills and the power industry. Sugar mills rely on massive metal rollers and shafts, shredders and bearings to grind sugarcane. Meanwhile, electric power requires cast turbine rotors, generator parts and steel transformer components to keep the lights on. Okhuysen grew up watching his father manage metallurgy setups and production designs on the foundry floor. With curiosity sparked by a love of invention, he followed his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps into a metal manufacturing career.  

“It’s just legal pyrotechnics, what’s not to love?” Okhuysen joked about metalcasting. “There’s fire all over the place, so it’s fun. But you also get a sense of excitement from students that you don’t get with other things.”

Known as Cal Poly Pomona’s “metalcasting guy,” Okhuysen is determined to impart his enthusiasm for manufacturing to students of all ages — overcoming outdated stigmas and inspiring the metal industry’s next generation of innovators. 

“In the past, metals manufacturing got a dirty name because people saw smoke and hot, uncomfortable environments. There was a perception that it was the kind of thing people do because they didn’t have many choices,” Okhuysen said. “METAL allows us to showcase that this is really a high-tech industry with modern tools and fascinating challenges.”

Now, at a critical time for American manufacturing, Okhuysen and his colleagues at Cal Poly Pomona are helping rebuild the nation’s metal workforce.  

Become By Doing

Foundries from California to New York need one thing: people. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturing employment has faced an uphill climb. Nearly 29 million Baby Boomers retired in the U.S. in 2020, taking decades of experience with them. In one survey, more than 65% of manufacturers said attracting and retaining talent is their top business challenge. While employment has rebounded to pre-pandemic numbers, thousands more manufacturing workers left the industry last fall.

The nation’s skill gap is now a national priority. Beyond the artistry of shaping metal from sparks and flames, metallurgy is foundational to America’s defense and supply chains. By 2033, almost 4 million manufacturing jobs could be available without the trained workers to fill them. 

“A strong national defense depends on a robust economy and price stability, a resilient manufacturing and defense industrial base, and secure domestic supply chains,” President Donald Trump wrote in an executive order last year.

METAL, led by IACMI – The Composites Institute®, with funding from the Department of War’s IBAS Program, partners with professional metallurgists and universities to build the skilled, adaptive metal workforce the nation needs. Through hands-on K-12 workshops, metallurgical bootcamps and apprenticeships, METAL is reintroducing metalcasting and forging to communities across the country — igniting curiosity to build fighter jets, power life-saving technologies and shape the 21st century.

Dr. Winny Dong, director for student projects and research through industry engagement in the College of Engineering and a professor in chemical and materials engineering, believes students learn best when education mirrors real-world industry needs. 

“We are focused on making sure our students are career-ready from day one,” Dong said. “We want to develop well-rounded citizens and a workforce that’s ready to contribute.”

At METAL’s Cal Poly Pomona bootcamp, engineering students and career seekers learn hands-on casting and forging not from textbooks, but in a foundry. Participants start with a self-paced, online training that covers casting design, additive manufacturing and melting processes. Then, for almost a week, the metallurgists-in-training get experience in front of the furnace, practicing the entire casting process: from simulations and heat treatments to carefully pouring lava-like metal into 3D-printed molds and machining or forging finished products.  

Dong, who’s a ceramics manufacturing expert, couldn’t wait to try metalcasting for the first time. 

“I was super excited,” she said. “It’s always exciting to make something yourself, not just watch somebody else make it or read about how it’s made. I think that’s the same feeling our METAL participants get.” 

By the end of the bootcamp, participants leave with an aluminum stein, a brass medallion, and an aluminum sand casting they personally create — all solid metal shaped and poured by their own hands. 

“We’re very student-centered and hands-on,” Okhuysen said. “Our motto is you ‘become by doing,’ with an emphasis on experiential learning.” 

And it’s never too early to start exploring the foundry.

Making Sand Molds and Casting Fun

Next door to Cal Poly Pomona is International Polytechnic High School (IPoly), where students are immersed in project-based learning to solve complex problems. They’re also encouraged to begin exploring career paths through college-level courses. 

Principal Dr. William Wallace said METAL’s hands-on K-12 workshop is exactly the type of skills-based program he encourages students to attend. 

“Public education in America forgets how important real-world experience is,” Wallace said. “When you’re engaging with the theoretical, kids don’t understand how fun a career could be. But when they get to play in a foundry and get their hands in the sand and see how those principles apply, it becomes worthwhile.”

With METAL, Cal Poly Pomona has expanded its K-12 community outreach, showing students of all ages what’s possible with metalcasting. From Girl Scout troops to local high schools, participants have the opportunity to pack sand into molds and transform molten tin into their own cast medallions. The workshop offers a glimpse of what students can later create in METAL bootcamps — and accomplish in manufacturing careers.  

“I love seeing how excited participants get,” Dong said. “Most kids probably don’t know anyone who works in the metals industry and never considered it as something they could do. You don’t need a PhD to develop a fulfilling career.”

Wallace said he hasn’t found another program where high school students can learn hands-on manufacturing skills from college professors — and IPoly’s students are eager for more.

“What I heard from almost all of the students was, ‘when do we get to do another class like this?’” Wallace said. “The kids loved it.”

After a lifetime of casting metal, Okhuysen said he would do it all over again. 

“When I was in industry, I would hire interns and tell them, ‘you will never be bored.’ Sometimes they were very frustrated, but they weren’t bored,” he laughed. “These careers are fun and incredibly rewarding.”

Ready to turn curiosity into a career? Start METAL’s free online training and visit our events page to attend the next METAL bootcamp or workshop near you.