A Brief History of CTMAA

Forty years ago the rapidly expanding Bay Area spawned a number of highly technical machine shops north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Started by entrepreneurs and former machinists from Silicon Valley – they sought more reasonable costs of living for their employees. The Novato to Santa Rosa area simply exploded with small, specialist precision shops. They served the burgeoning North Bay technology companies building high-tech communications, semiconductor, medical, optical and aerospace components. Soon however, they realized the intensive training necessary to grow their machinists, CNC, setup and tool-makers simply didn’t exist.

Working with a former Mare Island machine shop supervisor and a remarkable man who dedicated himself to making hundreds of his high school students aware of this wonderful trade – four owners got together and formed the California Tooling & Machining Apprenticeship Association.

Since our humble beginnings – starting with donated shop tools, drill presses, CNC’s and lathes at a local high school shop – CTMAA soon realized this same demand for relevant, hands-on and practical real-industry expertise was not being met throughout the greater San Francisco Bay area. But in order to scale to meet that demand, our founders and board of directors soon realized we weren’t a “training facility”.

Instead, our business model was to build a network of dedicated business owners, company executives and trades professionals who could help the large California Community college system attract qualified instructors, certify relevant (hands-on) curriculum to industry needs – and then build the employer commitments to those schools to assure their programs were financially sustained.

Today, CTMAA serves manufacturers throughout the state – with the industry’s most successful, proven and affordable way to meet tomorrow’s need for highly productive, good wage earners.