Professor who grew HVCC program plans to retire
Larkin helped youths begin careers in the manufacturing sector
David Larkin’s students often landed jobs even before the end of their freshman year.
Such was the machinists’ program reputation at Hudson Valley Community College that employers would recruit the students even though they had months of schooling yet to complete. The graduates went to work for companies ranging from General Electric to the Watervliet Arsenal and Simmons Machine Tool Co.
A major milestone came late last summer with the opening of a large new classroom building that would provide even more space to train students to meet a chronic shortage of machinists trained to operate state-of-the-art computer numerical control machines.
The Gene F. Haas Center for Advanced Manufacturing Skills, costing $18 million fully equipped, opened Aug. 27 with the firing of confetti from two air cannon and speeches from 15 elected and academic officials. Haas, who founded machine tool manufacturer Haas Automation as well as NASCAR and Formula One racing teams,
was among those who spoke at the Troy ceremony.
Haas’ California-based foundation had launched the fundraising with a $1 million grant that required matching funds. New York state followed with a $2.9 million grant. Additional gifts came in from employers, individuals and various foundations.
In all, the project took seven years to come to fruition.
And this week, Larkin let it be known that the upcoming school year will be his last at HVCC.
“This past May, HVCC offered a generous retirement package to the HVCC faculty, and I’ve decided on Option B, where I will work this coming year and my last day at the college will be the day of the Capstone
Ceremony to be held in May 2021,” he wrote in a widely circulated email.
Larkin will wind down his 30-year career at HVCC. “I’m going to be 71 1/2 years old,” he said Tuesday.
His successor as senior faculty member will be one of his former students, Brian Wickham.
Incoming classes this fall may be just a bit smaller because of the constraints placed by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Larkin.
But “with the opening of the new 37,000-squarefoot Gene Haas Center for Advanced Manufacturing Skills ... the AMT Program is uniquely set up to produce the skilled techs needed by the manufacturing community for years to come,” Larkin wrote.