REGIONAL CAREER NETWORKSREGIONAL CAREER NETWORKSFree Tool · For Companies That Hire Machinists
RCN Grant Watch reads every verified workforce grant from the Company side: what it would build in your region and which partner carries the application and the paperwork. Your company's part is to sign a short agreement, interview graduates, and host shop tours.
You have open reqs you cannot fill, a revolving door of green hires, and machinists heading toward retirement with thirty years of knowledge nobody wrote down. Run your own number on what a hire who walks at month four costs you: recruiting, training hours, scrap, and the restart. The grants that fund the fix are being awarded in your region right now. Most companies never see them.
CREATE MY FREE RCN GRANT WATCH ACCOUNTSee the grants that could fund a talent pipeline into your shop.Why I Built This
I come from a manufacturing family. My grandpa sold machine tools to Lockheed. My dad sold cutting tools all over Southern California. My wife has been in the industry for over a decade. So when a shop owner we knew asked me to come do training and recruiting for him, I said yes.
I hired a young man out of Los Angeles Valley College. He was top of his class. He showed up early and stayed late. Two weeks in, the owner walked by and said, he's going to quit in about six to eight weeks.
And he did. It wasn't the kid's fault. He was excited, he jumped in, and then he was gone, because he could not see a future from where he stood on that floor.
Months later, in that same shop, a young man in quality control asked me to print his training certificates. He had about twenty. I handed him the stack right there on the shop floor, and he said, bro, I barely graduated high school. That was the moment for me. When people can see their future laid out in front of them, they stay.
Then I went to Goodwill Southern California and managed sector strategies across a workforce system with 120 programs, and I watched the same movie on repeat. A nonprofit wins a grant. They build a program that works. People get trained. Companies start hiring. Then the grant ends, and the program ends with it.
If your company has ever loaned its best people to a training program's advisory group, hosted the tours, taken the graduates, and then watched the whole thing fold when its grant ran out, you already know how that movie ends. Nobody in that story failed. The nonprofit, the school, and the company each did their job. Programs die because they are built on a single grant, and because they run alone.
The Fix, and the Tool
So I started building Regional Career Networks. That is what RCN stands for in RCN Grant Watch.
A Regional Career Network is a locally coordinated system of nonprofits, educators, and employers that moves people into careers, with sector-specific pathways like CNC, Welding, or Maritime deployed based on regional demand.
In your terms: the nonprofits find the people, the school trains them, you interview and hire, and the network keeps the whole thing running after any one grant ends. Everyone keeps their lane. Nonprofits provide participants and wraparound services, the support that keeps people in training. Educators provide the training needed to be hired. Companies hire graduates and host apprenticeships. Your company's part is to interview graduates, hire the ones you choose, and host apprentices. And because the network sits outside any one organization, it stays standing between funding cycles, so the partners can go after the next grant together without starting over. Most workforce systems create plans. RCN builds the operational pathway that moves people through it.
We built this in San Bernardino first. Grant funds supported an operating STEM Lab on the ground and a machining training floor, and a Registered Apprenticeship is being formed with the state. Graduates earn National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) credentials from the school, and the companies decide who they hire through structured interviews. The school brings the training. The companies bring the interviews and the training on the job. The network maps it into one pathway.
I read grant opportunities across the country and load the real ones into a tool called RCN Grant Watch. I verify each grant and read it for your role and your region before it goes in, so you know whether it is worth your time.
How Your Company Uses It
First name, work email, and your shop's ZIP code. RCN Grant Watch opens with the Company lens already switched on, so every card reads from your side of the shop floor, and your ZIP code tells me which region you are watching from.
Each card shows the amount, the funder, the deadline, where the grant applies, what it pays for, and which partners it needs, including where your company fits. It also names the Lead Applicant for that grant, the partner that submits the application and signs. For most grants, that is an Educator or a Nonprofit.
That books a meeting with me about your open roles and how that grant funds people into them.
Why I Want Your Shop on the Map
My business is assembling regional partners around grants and winning them. When funding lands in a region, I need to already know which companies are hiring, what they run, and who will open the floor for a tour. Your account puts your shop on that map and gives you RCN Grant Watch. When a grant opens in your region, I already know your shop is there, and we can go after it together with your open roles in mind.
In San Bernardino, a state apprenticeship award funds a machinist pipeline the region's partners run together, and the first company is hosting apprentices at its own facility.
Enter your first name, work email, and your shop's ZIP code. Your account opens instantly with the Company lens switched on.
How Partnering With Me Works
When you book a meeting from a card, we spend 30 minutes online going over your open roles and the retirements you can see coming. I map them to your region's pathway and to the live grants that would fund it, and you leave knowing exactly what role your company would play.
If the region moves forward, the grant decides which partner serves as the Lead Applicant, and my team at CNC Career Network, the machining arm of Regional Career Networks, carries Our Narrative, the partner assembly, and the pathway work. We go after the grant together, and when it is won, it funds the training and the pathway your company hires from.
Your company's commitment lives on an MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding that fits on one page: a written commitment to a defined scope of work. For a Company, that means structured interviews with credentialed graduates where you decide who gets hired, facility tours, and a classroom talk or two. In San Bernardino, companies pick who they hire through those interviews. Each apprentice you host is hired first as your employee, on your payroll, and earns while learning. The school serves as the registered sponsor and handles the state paperwork, your mentors get trained, and the pathway keeps producing people after any single grant ends, because the network is built to outlive its funding cycles.
If you would rather talk first, skip the account and book the meeting directly. We will go through your open roles and the grants in your region that could fund training people to fill them.
Schedule a meeting about your hiringPick the time that works for you, and the meeting books instantly.
This is what we are building. I would like your shop in it.
CREATE MY FREE RCN GRANT WATCH ACCOUNTSee the grants that could fund a talent pipeline into your shop.P.S. Your best machinists are retiring and taking thirty years of knowledge with them. Setting up the account takes about two minutes, and your ZIP code tells me which region you are watching from. Create your free RCN Grant Watch account above, or book a meeting about your hiring here.