CREATING A 21st CENTURY MAKER SPACE

Ranken Technical College’s new Robert W. Plaster Free Enterprise Center is the ultimate “maker space”. Over 20,000 sq. ft. are dedicated to the art and craft of manufacturing. JEMA is extremely proud to be Ranken’s partner on a project that seeks to re-establish the great American tradition of manufacturing!

“Whereas, for many years I have been impressed with the fact that too little attention is given to the instruction of the mechanical trades, and that the public schools and other free educational institutions have a tendency to create in the minds of the young, as well as in the community a prejudice against manual labor, and the idea that common work is not respectable. I am satisfied that there is need of an institution the object of which shall be education and instruction in the ordinary mechanical trades and in which may be taught the dignity of labor. I have therefore formed an intention of endowing an institution in the city of Saint Louis and the State of Missouri, in which boys and men may be trained to habits of industry and economy, so that they may be able to support themselves by the labor of their own hands. Since, at my instance, a corporation has been organized to establish and maintain in the city of Saint Louis a school of mechanical trades known as ‘The David Ranken, Jr., School of Mechanical Trades”. – David Ranken Jr.