Joint industry-academia projects with regional industry have influenced creation of Florida's First Coast Manufacturing Innovation Partnership. The development of the collaboration has the primary goals of project-centered innovations for technology transfer, training the regional workforce with relevance to industry, and sustainability of technology transfer through creation of high-technology jobs. By providing an experiential education in manufacturing systems automation and design in the undergraduate engineering curriculum, engineering students are better prepared upon entering the workforce. Initial projects leading to the development of the Manufacturing Innovation Partnerships are outlined, followed by the description of the structure to further expand the scope of experiential project-centered engineering education in design and manufacturing systems engineering.