N 30.27° · W 97.74° · ATX · LINK ACTIVE

Program lengthUp to 12 months

Cohort statusAlpha · Coming Soon

Trade School 2.0

Building America's
institution for
advanced manufacturing.

The elite talent pipeline for the companies America's reindustrialization depends on.

Partner With Us

Unfilled skilled roles · this decade

2M+and climbing

Time-to-spec · new hire

90 to 180days wasted

Pedagogy lag · current schools

1 genbehind the floor

Arklight cohorts · 2026 pilot

Selectingdesign partners

01 · The Problem

You can't scale
what you can't staff.

DIB LABOR GAP
DEC 2025 · LIVE

I · Attrition

Your hires are retiring.

2M+ skilled roles unfilled this decade. The people who know how are gone in five years.

II · Pipeline

Your pipeline is empty.

Schools train on equipment and curriculum a generation behind your floor.

III · Ramp

Your new hires take too long.

90 to 180 days before you know if they'll stay.

The only thing that's going to solve labor availability, I hate to say this, is a slowdown in the economy because right now there just simply aren't enough people in the workforce for all of our suppliers.

Chris Powers · CEO, Hadrian

02 · The Outcome

Hires who ship to spec
on day one.

Not trained. Proven.

Contracts

You stop losing contracts to staffing gaps.

Ramp

You stop paying the 90-day ramp penalty.

Résumés

You stop gambling on résumés.

03 · How We Do It

A factory with
a school inside it.

One operating system runs the production floor and the training curriculum. Students produce real parts from week one, under the same tolerances, on the same machines, to the same spec as the partner running the contract.

OPERATING MODEL
INTEGRATED SCHEMATIC

01 · Acquire

Acquire.

We buy real factories with real contracts. Not labs. Not simulators. Real shops under real load.

02 · Automate

Automate.

One operating system runs the floor and the school. Every machine cycle becomes a training event, logged and scored.

03 · Insert School

Insert school.

Students produce real parts from week one. Every weld, cut, tolerance, logged, scored, signed.

AI-Tutored Live Floor Contract Throughput Verified Competency Dossier Mastery-Locked Partner Spec

04 · Why It Works

Three systems
no one else has integrated.

PEDAGOGY · PRODUCTION
MEASUREMENT

I · Pedagogy

Military as pedagogy.

The only pedagogy on earth that has ever produced elite operators in months instead of years.

II · Production

Live production.

Your first day with them is their three-hundredth. They've already shipped to spec, under load, to real customers.

III · Trade School

AI-enabled trade school.

You hire on performance data, not résumés. Every weld, cut, tolerance, logged, scored, signed.

The systems this methodology descends from.

7 INSTITUTIONS · 70 YEARS

West Point
USMA

Nuclear Power
NNPTC

III

Defense Language
Institute

Navy SEAL
NSWC

Army
Special Forces

DARPA
Digital Tutor

VII

Naval Education
& Training

05 · The Operator Pipeline

Assess. Train. Deploy.
Then keep compounding.

Every phase produces a measurable signal. The dossier grows with the operator. The operator stays deployable for their entire career.

PROGRAM LENGTH
UP TO 12 MONTHS

01 · Assess

Assess.

~6 hours

Aptitude, learning velocity, mission readiness. Quantified before training begins.

02 · Train

Train.

Up to 12 months

Mastery-based curriculum on a live production floor. Continuous AI-tutored evaluation.

03 · Deploy

Deploy.

Day 1 ready

Placed with partners on day one. A signed performance dossier walks in with them.

04 · Compound

Compound.

Lifetime

The dossier grows with every shift. The operator never stops shipping, or learning.

06 · Arklight Competence Index · ACI

Hire on performance data.
Not résumés.

Résumés were built for a different century. ACI quantifies aptitude, learning velocity, precision discipline, and mission readiness, identifying high-potential Americans that traditional hiring overlooks.

INDEX · REV 2026.04
COMPOSITE PROFILE

Cohort Alpha · Floor Discipline

Kramer, M.

Operator ID · ARK-04-0217

847 / 1000

● Verified Composite

Aptitude

Learning velocity

Spatial reasoning

Precision discipline

Mission readiness

Process integrity

07 · The Comparison

Every other model
optimizes for enrollment.

We optimize for what you get. Measured against the only benchmark that matters: can they ship to your spec, under your tolerance, on your schedule, on day one.

MODEL COMPARISON
REV 2026.04

	Trade School	4-Year University	Trade School 2.0
Duration	2 years	4 years	Up to 12 months, mastery-locked
Cost to student	$15k to $30k	$100k+	$0 · earned on the floor
Pedagogy	Classroom-first	Lecture-first	AI-tutored, floor-based, military methodology
Assessment	Seat-time	Credit hours	Live production, continuously measured
Equipment	A generation behind	Rarely exists	Same machines the partner runs
Day-one capability	Needs retraining	Needs retraining	Ships to spec, to tolerance, on schedule
Built for	The 1980s factory floor	The professional class	America's reindustrialization

08 · What You Get as a Partner

We grow
when you grow.

PARTNERSHIP MODEL
COHORT ALIGNMENT

I · Capacity

Unlock capacity.

Underwrite the contracts you couldn't staff before. We build the workforce to match the backlog.

II · De-risk

De-risk every hire.

A full performance dossier before they walk in. Scored, signed, portable across the DIB.

III · Curriculum

Shape the curriculum.

Your benchmarks become our mastery gates. Your tolerances become theirs.

IV · Priority

Get the first cohort.

Priority placement before anyone else. Design partners hire first.

09 · Partner Engagement

Co-design the first
Trade School 2.0 cohort.

We're selecting a small group of founding partners to shape Cohort Alpha. You bring the tolerances, the spec, the process gates. We build the operators. They ship to your standard on day one.

IPriority placement of the first graduating operators, before anyone else hires.
IICurriculum shaped around your tolerances, spec, and floor discipline.
IIIA portable ACI dossier, scored, signed, day-one ready, verified across the DIB.

CohortAlpha · 2026

IntakeOpen · 3 to 5 partners

ResponseWithin 48 hours

Building America'sinstitution foradvanced manufacturing.

You can't scalewhat you can't staff.