WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP – Washington Township High School technology education teacher Rick Ambacher has been selected as district's Teacher of the Year, making him eligible for Gloucester County Teacher of the Year consideration. Ambacher has spent his entire 32 years in education at Washington Township High School as a member of the technology education department that has received numerous state and...
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP - Washington Township High School technology education teacher Rick Ambacher has been selected as district's Teacher of the Year, making him eligible for Gloucester County Teacher of the Year consideration.
Ambacher has spent his entire 32 years in education at Washington Township High School as a member of the technology education department that has received numerous state and national awards.
Following high school graduation, Ambacher served in the U.S. Navy as a jet mechanic, based in Virginia Beach, Va. It was his training role for young airmen on the Navy's power plant system that sparked an interest in education, and following his discharge in 1979, he enrolled in Glassboro State College and graduated in 1983 with a degree in industrial education.
He was hired at WTHS in 1983 and just two years later, helped to reshape the department into technology education. Ambacher has developed courses in Design and Technical Presentation, Environmental Design, Architectural Design Systems, Advanced Applications in Engineering Design, and Engineering Design.
Ambacher has trained numerous teachers from the state and across the country in the use of Pro/DESKTOP as a design instrument and has incorporated a number of new technologies into WTHS curriculum including the Autodesk Inventor, 3-D printing and computer numerical control (CNC) router.
In addition to the body camera prototype that his students developed last year, his classes are currently working on developing a design for the school's forensics teacher that allows an I-Phone to be used as a microscope.