YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Billy Clark has been looking for work as a material handler since his former employer closed down last August.
Liam Davis, a rising junior at West Middlesex High School, wants to learn about available careers in advanced manufacturing. He has an aptitude for it and plans to pursue a career in manufacturing.
“They both just successfully completed our summer advanced manufacturing program through Pennsylvania College of Technology,” says Julie Michael Smith, manager at Lawrence Mercer Manufacturers Coalition. “They took their certification exams today, and they passed and they’ll receive an industry recognized credential as well as the preapprenticeship documentation from the Pa. Apprenticeship Training office.”
The Preapprenticeship
LMMC launched the program a couple of years ago as one of the ways it’s working to strengthen the workforce pipeline for local manufacturers. The credential earned is a stepping stone to careers in industrial maintenance, robotics, automation or machining.
“It really provides that foundational background and those basic skills needed for manufacturing,” Smith adds.
Part of the program, which spans three weeks, includes a tour of plants in western Pennsylvania including Ellwood Crankshaft & Machine Co., part of the Ellwood Crankshaft Group, in Hermitage, Pa.
ECG produces forged and machined products including crankshafts. It also offers reconditioning, heat treatment machining/milling and testing.
The company offers several ways young people including high school students may work in the plant including internships and a co-op program.
Marshall Rupert, plant manager and 30-year company employee, says three West Middlesex High School students started working part time at the plant this month as part of the co-op program. Each is working in a different area.
“Obviously, they didn’t have any training behind them, so we’re training them how to read the blueprints, how to read the programs [and] measure the work pieces using micrometers,” he explains.
Once each of the new employees is fully trained, they’ll rotate to learn more skills.
ECG is looking for employees across several positions. For those without experience, pay starts at $20 per hour with full benefits offered after a certain number of days.
The company also offers incentives for productivity.
“You show up to work every day, do your job, wear your [personal protective equipment], you earn an additional $300 per month,” Rupert says. “But now on top of that, then we have productivity, we have a safety incentive, we have a quality incentive and then we have a throughput incentive. With all those, we’ve been averaging right around $1,200 additional per month per employee.”
Smith adds that workforce development is important to Anna Barensfeld, Ellwood vice president of strategic initiatives and LMMC board president.
“She says her family’s been at this company for well over 100 years, and she’s here working as well, and she wants to be part of that legacy to help carry this company forward and help it grow and thrive, so she’s very committed to workforce development,” Smith says.
LMMC’s commitment includes providing training opportunities to people who want to enter the workforce, helping employees advance and reaching out to those with an interest in manufacturing, she adds. LMMC’s outreach also has targeted young people and their parents, teachers and coaches who may be uninformed or misinformed about manufacturing careers.
Smith points to the brightness and cleanliness of the ECG plant with employees wearing clothing with the company logo along with their PPE. That may be in contrast with some people’s perception of manufacturing companies as dark, dirty places.
The Students
Davis, one of the students who recently completed the program, wants to enter manufacturing after he graduates. He’s also enrolled in the electrical occupations program at Mercer County Career Center.
“I want to see how that turns out,” Davis explains. “Either way, I still want to go into manufacturing. I just want to get as much [with the] trades as I can.”
Clark, another student, has nine years of material handling experience, operating a forklift, maintaining the yard of former employers and removing oil spots in accordance with environmental protection agency requirements.
“I’ve dug up over 300 oil spots by myself with a shovel for a year, and it’s what I do best because I know how to do it and I know easier ways to do it than how most people think,” he says. “I’m constantly thinking of different ways to do something, too.”
But he’s been looking for work since his last employer closed last August. He enrolled in the preapprenticeship program to help.
“This is just important to learn to hopefully help you get past that hump that I’ve evidently been hitting every time I interview,” Clark says.
He learned about the program through his counselor, who he sees as part of a recovery program. He’s eager to get a full-time job so he can regain custody of his son from foster care.
“I need to get a stable job because [the department of child and youth services] already has me as a stable home,” Clark says. “I just need stable income.”
More Skills
John Martin, one of the instructors in the LMMC program, says that by working with Pennsylvania CareerLink, students learn how to tailor their resumes and job applications to specific job openings by using keywords.
“What we are doing is when we see some subject matter that we believe we need to reach out and pull that into the program as a guest speaker, we’re able to do that,” Martin says. “That really leverages somebody that knows about that particular content who is able to help our students understand it, and I sort of facilitate…so it really has provided a lot of flexibility for us to sort of resource some of that, which I think is a strong point in the program.”
Martin also works with the students on their soft skills. Those are skills that Rupert, the ECG plant manager, says many prospective employees lack. Sometimes it’s difficult to get them to show up for interviews they’ve set.
But the company has seen success with its co-op program.
“I think we had 10 co-ops last year that graduated,” Rupert says. “Out of those 10, we retained seven. Actually, eight, but one is still going to go to college. He’s still working here through the summer and is going to continue to work part time. But he is going to start college this fall.”
And Smith says the preapprenticeship program also is geared to people who are at different inflection points in their lives.
“They’re either changing careers or they face barriers and encounters and we help them with supportive services to address those issues,” she says.
That may include people released from incarceration, those who have gone through substance abuse recovery or someone who needs help getting a driver’s license restored.
“We’re also helping more women get into manufacturing,” Smith explains. “We’re 50% of the demographic but only 24, 25% of the manufacturing workforce and probably even less if you take out those management positions and you look at women working on the factory floor.”
Challenges remain in getting people enrolled in the preapprenticeship program, which is why LMMC has tweaked it, including reducing it from four to three weeks. The program is free and enrollees may earn up to $1,000.
“I will say, in terms of raising awareness of the manufacturing careers, I think that we’ve made very good strides on that,” Smith says.
Part of that involved convening groups of young people through western Pennsylvania high schools to learn about how they view the industry. LMMC members wanted to hear from young people rather than talk about what they believe young people think, she says.
“And it was really kind of enlightening to hear what their perceptions were and what influences them, and then you can help crack your messaging,” Smith adds.
One metric for the Pennsylvania College of Technology Advanced Manufacturing Preapprenticeship program conducted during the school year shows progress.
“The first year, which was three years ago, we started with 12 students,” Smith says. “Then we had 28. This year we had 50.”
Pictured at top: Liam Davis, from left, John Martin and Billy Clark, pause during a tour last month of Ellwood Crankshaft & Machine Co. in Hermitage, Pa. Martin is an instructor in a preapprenticeship program through the Lawrence Mercer Manufacturers Coalition and Davis and Clark were among his students.
