OCC Names Head of New High-Tech Unit

Orange Coast College has named John J. Waters, an associate professor of machine technology for 14 years, as director of the college’s new Center for Applied Competitive Technologies.

The center is one of eight high-tech centers in the state started at community colleges in the last year to provide technical training and consultation to local small and medium-size manufacturing firms.

Orange Coast’s center will help firms improve the skills of their employees and the quality of their products.

The college received $90,000 from the state and other sources to establish the center. That amount will be repeated for the next three years to maintain the center and allow it to buy equipment needed to train students and employees in the new technology.

Waters, 43, worked as a machinist for two large companies and taught industrial arts at El Dorado High School before being hired by Orange Coast College in 1976. He developed the curriculum for the college’s computerized numerical control program.

“Many small to medium-size firms work as subcontractors for large general-contracting firms,” Waters said. “We’ll assist those firms in improving the quality of the products they supply to general contractors.”