This story is part of an ongoing series, Powering Change: Panasonic and De Soto. If you'd like to share your excitement or concerns about the electric vehicle battery plant, you can do so here.
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The Panasonic electric vehicle battery plant in De Soto, Kansas, is expected to open this spring and wants 1,000 employees hired by summer.
The company's overall goal is to hire 4,000 employees.
The impacts of Panasonic and De Soto are already spreading to colleges across the Kansas City area where students are powering changes of their own.
Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC) has been training some of Panasonic's maintenance technicians since August 2024 and started training some of its skilled operators in January, according to school officials.
The community college already teaches its students skills to work at companies that include Garmin, Amsted Rail, Catalent and other big local companies.
So, think of Panasonic as the new kid on the block for an already successful program.
“I think now other people are realizing what's happening in Kansas City,” said Chuck Saunders, program coordinator and instructor. “Once they (students) have that baseline knowledge, they can go anywhere and have skills that are applicable to the building they just walked into.”
At KCKCC, students can apply to the Federation of Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) program. Upon acceptance, FAME employers — which include Garmin, Panasonic and others — will select students.
The companies will employ those students part-time in their facilities while they continue to take part-time classes through the Automation Engineer Technology (AET) program at KCKCC.
It's similar to a work-study program that includes Panasonic.
“We have students who are learning robots in their third semester," Saunders said. "I was in this field for 15 years before I got to touch my first robot. We just kind of take years of waiting for that opportunity and compress it into a few semesters of training.”
Grant Johnson is a student in KCKCC’s FAME program. He was working at Amsted Rail in Kansas City, Kansas, before deciding to go back to school.
“I feel like there's a lot higher of a ceiling of my opportunities and room for growth now,” Johnson said.
Lily Nevarez is another student who splits her week between the classroom and her manufacturing job at Catalent in Kansas City.
“I apply everything that I learn here (KCKCC) there (her job) and vice versa,” Nevarez said.
Saunders said this is just the beginning and that the magnitude of impacts to come are still on the horizon.
“The more people that are here, the more facilities that are here, the more skilled technicians we need,” Saunders said. “So we create those skilled technicians, and once we have that larger supply of skilled technicians, that then attracts more facilities to come here.”
KCKCC will host an open house on its AET program with representatives from all FAME employers, including Panasonic, from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb.27, at the Dr. Thomas R. Burke Technical Education Center, 6565 State Ave., in Kansas City, Kansas.
The event is free and open to the public.
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KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers the cities of Shawnee and Mission. She also focuses on issues surrounding the cost of health care, saving for retirement and personal debt. Share your story idea with Elyse.