(WACO) – Students in the Electrical Power and Controls program at Texas State Technical College will benefit from an equipment donation from a local company.

Staff from VanTran Industries Inc. on Imperial Drive in Waco delivered three new pole mounted 5 kilovolt-amperes transformers earlier this week to program faculty and staff in the Electronics Center. The donation valued at $1,000 marks the first time the company has donated equipment to the program.

“The students can get real-world knowledge and experience as opposed to working with a simulated model,” said Robbie Morehead, VanTran’s sales engineer and project coordinator.

The Electrical Power and Controls program has 190 students.

Dylan Hammick, 23, of Lorena and an Electrical Power and Controls major said he looked forward to labs using the new transformers.

“It will give you better field experience,” he said. “The training here at TSTC is good. This is real life.”

Hammick attended Industry Career Day in March at TSTC and met with several employers, one which has already interviewed him for a job.

“Electricity is a steady job market,” he said. “Power is power and everybody has to have it.”

Another Electrical Power and Controls major, 26-year-old Tino Alvarado of Waco, wants to work with the new transformers as soon as he can. Alvarado said using the transformers will be good experience for when he starts as a substation technician on Aug. 29 at Oncor Electric Delivery Co. in Fort Worth.

“I like everything about electricity,” he said. “It’s not easy to learn but it gets me interested in learning what is going on.”

VanTran has had a representative on the program’s advisory committee the past few years to offer suggestions on how the program curriculum could continually be tailored to the needs of industries.

The company was founded in 1963 and makes liquid filled transformers shipped throughout Canada and the United States.

For more information on how to make cash or equipment donations to TSTC, contact The TSTC Foundation at 254-867-3900.

Registration continues for Fall Semester. For more information log on to tstc.edu.