Her hair is tied in a bandanna, Rosie the Riveter-style. She wears a plaid flannel shirt and clear plastic safety goggles. She picks up a block of aluminum the size of a shoebox, clamps it in a vice, and presses a button. The lathe roars to life, spinning the aluminum into a silver blur.

She’s a precision machine student attending the new AMTEC center at Everett Community College. There’s a ninety percent chance that she will be hired within a month of graduating. The job will be a skilled position in the manufacturing industry and she will most likely be paid good wages for her in-demand skills.

The Advanced Manufacturing Training & Education Center (AMTEC) is part of a wave of development that is changing the face of north Broadway, a section of North Everett long in need of new infrastructure. “Tear downs” are being torn down. A Red Lion hotel is under construction. Market rate apartments with retail space are scheduled to be built during the next five years.

A demand for quality local education is driving much of this development. UW Bothell, WSU, and Western are some of the colleges now offering four year degrees and masters programs on campus. Hence the cranes and bulldozers, the construction zone signs and traffic cones.

I contacted EvCC staff to get more information about what’s new on campus and what’s on the horizon. They agreed to show me around. 

We started at Mountain View Hall, a micro efficiency dormitory built next to Everett Community College. This is not an empty-pizza box and sagging couch type of dorm. Here the dryers text you when your socks are clean. TVs in the common areas stream Netflix. And, yes, there is a view of the mountains.

Mountain View Hall is the latest in a series of six new buildings built on campus since 2007. Each of the 120 rooms in the Mountain View dorm is 200 square feet (about the size of a single-car garage) and includes a bathroom, a bed, a closet, and ample shelving. This practical model of compact housing is gaining popularity in cities like Seattle and New York where the demand for space is at a premium. 

We left Mountain View and walked to the nearest intersection. On one corner was a new Starbucks. On another corner a yellow backhoe lifted chunks of concrete into a semi-truck. This construction zone will be a five story dorm this time next year. Change is in the air.

I floated the “G word” that seems to be on everyone’s lips lately. Gentrification.

One of my tour guides, Katherine pointed out that thirty percent of EvCC attendees are students of color and about half of all learners are first generation students, meaning that they are the first people in their families to pursue higher education.

Gentrification is not the goal. Gentrification implies socioeconomic exclusivity and soaring area rents. EvCC instead wants to create opportunities for local students by giving them access to better buildings, technology, and four year degree programs.

I took note: this is an important distinction. This is not development for the sake of development. It’s an investment in the community.

We entered the AMTEC building and joined a group of executives from Kakamigahara, Japan. An American woman in a blazer gave a demonstration of a robot hand while a man translated the basics of servo-mechanics into Japanese. 

This is the college’s mechatronics department. It opened just last week. Mechatronics means “making stuff with robots” (I asked), and it’s a hot skill in the modern aerospace industry, both in Japan and in Washington State. Governor Jay Inslee will be touring the AMTEC Center on October 25th to celebrate the building’s $2.5 million expansion.

Robots hands in North Everett? Yes. Also: computer labs, 3D printers, plasma cutters, and warehouse rooms filled with complex-looking sci-fi machines with lots of buttons (do they text you about your socks? Uncertain.) 

North Broadway is getting a facelift, but the results aren’t only cosmetic. These changes are creating opportunities for students to go and better the city. Eighty percent of EvCC alums stay in the immediate area, benefiting our local aerospace and maritime industries.

Rosie the Riveter works at the lathe with determination in her eyes. She’s giving a shape to her future.

AMTEC open house with Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee is 9:30 a.m. Oct. 25 at AMTEC, 909 N. Broadway at College Plaza. The event is open to the public.

Special thanks to my guides Katherine Schiffner, Director of Public Relations, and Patrick Sisneros, Vice President of College Services.

Richard Porter is a social worker and musician. He lives in North Everett and enjoys running on Marine View Drive, bicycling down tree-lined streets, and trying to coax vegetables out of his yard.