A partnership between Maine’s composites industry and Southern Maine Community College’s composites technology program illustrates how higher education and industry can work together to the advancement of both, U.S. Sen. Angus King said Tuesday.

King made his remarks while touring the Maine Advanced Technology and Engineering Center on SMCC’s Midcoast Campus, where the composites technology program is located.

MATEC is also home to the Composites Engineering Research Laboratory — a partnership between SMCC and the Maine Composites Alliance that provides training for students and research for companies involved in composites manufacturing.

“This is the way it has to be done,” King told SMCC officials after the tour, which was not open to the public. “The college has to be connected to the businesses and the businesses have to be connected to the college so that the people being trained are trained for the right jobs the right way.”

King stopped at MATEC as part of a visit to Brunswick Landing, a business campus located at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station. He also stopped at Oxford Networks and Tempus Jets.

During the visit, King was joined by SMCC officials and executives from composites manufacturing companies, including Ocean Renewable Power Co. of Portland, Harbor Technologies LLC of Brunswick and Custom Composite Technologies Inc. of Bath.

The Composites Engineering Research Laboratory provides an invaluable service for businesses by putting under one roof a variety of precision tools that analyze the properties of composites and polymerbased materials, said Steve Von Vogt, managing director of the Maine Composites Alliance.

“This is the most successful industry partnership we’ve had,” he said. “The lab is a vital tool for industry and a selling point for Brunswick Landing and the state of Maine.”

Funded by a Maine Technology Institute grant, the Composites Engineering Research Laboratory is the most complete and sophisticated research laboratory of its kind in the region, said Andy Schoenberg, who heads SMCC’s composites technology program.

“This partnership brings science to the academic program, but it also brings jobs to our students and a trained workforce to our partners,” Schoenberg said. “That workforce is trained in the science that the industry needs.”