LWTech Celebrates 75 Years

This year marks LWTech’s 75^th anniversary! LWTech began as Lake Washington Vocational Technical Institute, part of the Lake Washington School District. From our first programs in sewing and automotive, the college grew steadily to include vocational programs in trade and industry, adult education, and community service classes. Our main campus opened in Kirkland in 1983.

In 1991, legislation converted Washington State’s five vocational-technical institutes into technical colleges and made them part of the Washington State Community and Technical College system. It was then that we became Lake Washington Technical College providing primarily certificates and associate degrees in vocational programs.

Then, in 2011, recognizing the expanding nature of workforce pathways, including applied baccalaureates, our Board of Trustees embraced a vision for the college as a technology college (or polytechnic). This vision resulted in changing our name to Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWTech) in order to better represent our wide options of programs.

Today, we offer 12 bachelor's degrees, 42 associate degrees, and 70 professional certificates in 41 areas of study, including STEM-focused programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

Our campus has continued to grow and change, just like our programs. We are in the process of building our new two-story, 50,000 sq ft, Center for Design, our newest instructional building in more than ten years. This new state-of-the-art building will house our high demand programs in Applied Design, Illustration, Gaming and Interactive Media, and Architectural Technology. The Center will also have a 500-seat multipurpose space that we expect will become a go-to space for our community.

In addition to the Center, we’re also working to replace our aging (25 years+) yellow portables that comprise our childcare center, the Early Learning Center (ELC), which is a critical resource for students, employees, and the community.

We’ll be celebrating all year, so stay tuned!

An early photo of LWTech's Campus