SACA Certifications Power UW-Stout’s First Automation Leadership Graduate
The University of Wisconsin-Stout is marking a major milestone in its commitment to preparing the next generation of automation leaders. As the manufacturing industry accelerates toward smarter, more connected systems, UW-Stout’s B.S. in Automation Leadership has emerged as a forward‑thinking pathway for working professionals who want to advance their careers without starting from scratch. The program is intentionally designed around minimizing the time to earn a degree, recognizing prior learning, honoring real‑world experience, and integrating industry‑recognized Smart Automation Certification Alliance (SACA) certifications to create a faster, more relevant route to a bachelor’s degree.
At the heart of the program is a simple but powerful idea: professionals shouldn’t have to relearn what they’ve already mastered. A total of 61 credit hours can be earned just through SACA credentials. This structure dramatically shortens time to completion while ensuring every credit reflects validated, employer‑trusted skills.
Just five semesters after being introduced, UW-Stout celebrated its first graduate of the Automation Leadership program.
Cody Erwin is the Industrial Technology Instructor and Technical Training Program Lead at Mid‑Del Technology Center in Oklahoma City. Mid‑Del is a dedicated SACA member institution and offers ten micro‑credential options in its Industrial Technology program, giving students a solid on‑ramp into modern manufacturing.
Erwin knows the value of those credentials firsthand. He came to education after working in industry, and he’s earned twelve SACA certifications himself. That experience shaped the way he now approaches training. As he puts it, he wanted to “build programs that were focused around automation and all the skills that we were needing in those types of roles that I had been in before.”
That industry experience is exactly what led Cody to the Automation Leadership program at UW-Stout. After years of seeing firsthand what today’s technicians and team leads are expected to know, he wanted a degree that aligned with the realities of modern manufacturing, not something disconnected from the work happening on the floor. Stout’s approach immediately stood out.
For Erwin, the way Stout structured the Automation Leadership program made all the difference. By transferring his twelve SACA certifications as university credits, he ended up saving around $20,000 on his degree. And because the coursework was fully online, he was able to complete the degree from Oklahoma and correlate his capstone to his work at Mid-Del.
When speaking about the program, Erwin says, “What stood out to me was how practical the course was. One, that it was offered online so I could take it while I was full-time teaching. And then two was my curiosity for the development between leadership and technical. I wanted to see how we could interplay those to promote more people to get into this trade.”
Being in education, Erwin wanted to focus his capstone project on the people in automation rather than a process itself. He designed a technical system that laid out proper standards, training, and the structure to sustain and grow into a larger scale.
Erwin graduated in December 2025 as the first person to earn a B.S. in Automation Leadership. Erwin is also a first-generation college graduate. “Becoming a college graduate, especially the first in my line of family, it was a goal that I set a long time ago and I slowly chipped away at it,” he commented. “So, to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel was amazing and I’m very thankful that I got to go through that process and grow.”
Looking to the future, Erwin will continue to focus on automation and workforce development. He also plans to keep utilizing SACA certifications with the students he teaches and for his own professional development.
Find more about the Automation Leadership degree here: https://www.uwstout.edu/programs/bs-automation-leadership
Find the latest SACA certifications here: https://www.saca.org/smart-automation-certifications/saca-micro-credential-descriptions/
Join us at the inaugural SACA National Conference: https://www.saca.org/sacacon/
SACA Certifications Key to New Automation Leadership Degree
The Smart Automation Certification Alliance (SACA) is pleased to announce that its certifications will play a key role in students pursuing a first-of-its-kind Automation Leadership degree at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
On June 9, 2023, the UW System Board of Regents approved a new B.S. Automation Leadership degree at UW-Stout for enrollment this fall. As the university noted in its press release:
“The online program is designed for technical and community college students who have an associate degree and incorporates training in SACA…Students also can begin their career path in high school while taking college credits or, if working in industry, return to school as adult learners to finish their degree.”
SACA Executive Director Jim Wall is excited for students and workers who now have a new path to turn their SACA credentials into a bachelor’s degree. “It’s unprecedented that a university system would recognize a credentialing agency at this level,” noted Wall.
According to UW-Stout, “[o]ffering courses aligned with [SACA] standards, [the] Automation Leadership degree offers the relevant leadership and management training to enhance your industry-recognized credentials…[and] can be completed entirely online.”
SACA board member Matt Kirchner notes that “[t]he integration of industry-backed stackable credentials from the Smart Automation Certification Alliance, the alliances with technical colleges and the hands-on nature of the degree are unmatched.”
Kirchner, who also has 20 years of experience as an advanced manufacturing CEO and is currently president of ATS/LAB Midwest, a leading distributor of technical education learning materials, was instrumental in bringing industry experts into the process of developing both SACA credentials and the new Automation Leadership degree.
“We consult with advanced manufacturing employers in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest – from smaller contract manufacturers to the Fortune 500,” Kirchner said. “Almost all of them tell us one of their greatest needs is for team members who understand automation, Industry 4.0, advanced control systems and process optimization and who can integrate highly advanced industrial technology and help lead a company’s digital transformation. People with these skills are in unbelievably high demand. This degree hits the mark with precision and does so in a genuinely innovative fashion.”
A wide variety of Wisconsin manufacturers assisted during the program’s development, including “Harley-Davidson, Kohler, Mercury Marine, Oshkosh Corp., Ashley Furniture, Generac, Greenheck Group and Plexus, as well as many medium and small manufacturers.”
About SACA
SACA sits at the forefront of the effort to certify students and workers who demonstrate the required knowledge and hands-on smart automation skills employers so desperately need. SACA’s certifications were developed in conjunction with industry partners who could speak from experience about their needs when it comes to workers able to work alongside a variety of advanced automation technologies.
SACA offers a wide variety of certifications in popular industrial skill areas, including certifications at the Associate, Specialist, and Professional level. For those wishing to focus on building a strong foundation of skills employers need, SACA also offers many micro-credentials that allow students and workers to add certifications as they master new areas.
For workers, SACA certifications can help market their smart automation skills to potential employers. For those employers, SACA certifications represent confirmation that a worker has the skills to hit the ground running in the workplace. To learn more about Industry 4.0 certifications and how SACA can help both future workers and industrial employers begin the task of bridging the Industry 4.0 skills gap, contact SACA for more information.
- Published in News
