OSU-OKC and Tinker Air Force Base sign partnership agreement

OKLAHOMA CITY (April 25, 2023) – Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City and Tinker Air Force Base have announced an educational partnership to help increase training programs that can be leveraged to enhance the workforce.

The agreement allows the sharing of technology for both OSU-OKC students and Tinker Air Force Base employees that opens pathways for Tinker engineers to mentor students and stay connected to help create better pathways for future employment.

“By entering into a formal partnership with the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex at Tinker Air Force Base, one of Oklahoma’s leading employers, OSU-OKC takes yet another step toward fulfillment of the institution’s founding mission of addressing our state’s most pressing workforce challenges,” said Scott Newman, President of OSU-OKC. “This signing represents a major step forward in OSU-OKC’s and the OC-ALC’s capacities to improve lives and advance Oklahoma in significant and meaningful ways.”

The partnership is beneficial for both OSU-OKC and OC-ALC because it allows for the sharing of skills and expert knowledge and is a transformational agreement allowing both parties to work together.

With the agreement, OSU students, faculty and staff will have an opportunity to apply their academic research to practical problems within the Department of Defense and aerospace industry. Likewise, the OC-ALC will have access to OSU facilities and expert knowledge.

“No doubt they’re working on some things that we don’t have,” said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey King, commander of the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex at Tinker Air Force Base. “We definitely have all kinds of equipment. From our new directed energy deposition machine to 3-D metal printing to a massive C-T scanner, to the world’s largest electron microscope. Now, all these are accessible to students at the University.”