The Southwest Washington community of Ridgefield is a step closer to achieving Mayor Matt Cole’s vision of a “complete community” that’s more than just a suburb of Portland or Vancouver.
That was on display Thursday, when Clark College’s new Advanced Manufacturing Center at Boschma Farms was officially unveiled.
Clark College student Liam Darden uses an ironworker machine at the Advanced Manufacturing Center at Boschma Farms on Jan. 8, 2025.
Erik Neumann / OPB
Before the photo-op and blue ribbon cutting, Cole told the crowd that the idea for the workforce development center originated back in 2007.
“Two decades,” he said.
On Thursday, it was officially unveiled. The 49,000-square-foot campus can accommodate 1,200 general education students. Those classes began in April. Since then, water jet cutters, robotic welders and 3D printers have been installed for use by the smaller advanced manufacturing program.
The two-year degree will give students a taste of these fields, and others like mechatronics, which combines engineering design and production, and computer-aided drafting.
Clark College President Karen Edwards speaks during the ribbon cutting of the Advanced Manufacturing Center at Boschma Farms on Jan. 8, 2026.
Erik Neumann / OPB
According to Jesse Kysar, an instructor in the engineering program, these disciplines are usually siloed when they’re taught at other colleges.
“The idea here was to bring all of those different disciplines together,” he said.
Clark College’s main campus is in Vancouver. The manufacturing center is yet another example of the rapid growth that has defined Ridgefield, a city in north Clark County, in recent years. According to the U.S. Census, the population of Ridgefield increased by 48% from 2020 to 2024.
“To have Clark College here and finally open, I think, is a long vision come to fruition, and we’re glad because it builds on that foundation of what we saw as a complete community from the very beginning,” Cole said. “It’s been a long time in the works.”
The land was donated to the Clark College Foundation by the Boschma family, a longtime Ridgefield farming family known for their dairy operation. They sold 72 acres to the Clark College Foundation at a below market rate of $9 million in 2014.
The family created the opportunity to invest in education in the region while spurring economic growth, said Clark County Foundation CEO Calen Ouellette.
“I think the concept, as a whole, with Clark College at Boschma Farms was really interesting to them as well because it serviced the needs of north County,” Ouellette said.
The interior of the Clark College Advanced Manufacturing Center at Boschma Farms on Jan. 8, 2025.
Erik Neumann / OPB
There were challenges along the way. The land sale occurred the same year that Karen Edwards started as president of Clark College, and when the Ridgefield campus received funding from the state.
As the project progressed, Edwards said, the building footprint had to be scaled back from an initial 70,000-square-foot design to its current 49,000-square-foot size, as the passage of time shrank how far their funding would go.
“The driver was the money,” Edwards said.
Still, she’s happy with the result.
“It’s a smaller facility, but it’s still absolutely what the community needs and what we wanted,” she said.
When planning the courses they would offer, staff specifically discussed workforce education for local projects like the Interstate Bridge replacement across the Columbia River.
“I don’t want them to have to go out of the state or out of our community to find workers,” Edwards said.
The community college has other programs planned that are awaiting accreditation, like clean energy vehicle mechanics, construction management, and civil engineering.
On campus alongside the general education students, the advanced manufacturing program has a first cohort of just 13. In time, the program plans to triple that number. The first advanced manufacturing class is expected to graduate in 2027.
