YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Students attending Choffin Career & Technical Center now have the opportunity to pursue credentials that could prepare them for careers in advanced manufacturing.
Administrators, instructors, and program partners were on hand Wednesday afternoon during an open house to unveil the career center’s advanced manufacturing lab, replete with machinery and equipment that were formerly used at East High School and Chaney High School.
“It’s exciting, because we haven’t had this program here,” said Choffin Director Mike Saville. “It’s been in existence in the district as an elective, but what we’re doing now is bringing it here and amping it up.”
In the past, these courses would last 50 minutes, Saville said. Now, students in their junior and senior years are able to devote two-and-a-half hours to classroom education and hands-on training five days a week. “It gives these students the opportunities to earn industry credentials,” he said. “We are prepping our students to become very eligible in the short term to enter into manufacturing.”
Saville said in approximately one year, the first group of students would have gone through the entire two-year curriculum, enabling them to obtain skills credentials and industry certifications.
Approximately 35 seniors and 15 juniors are enrolled in the program, Saville said. However, he hopes those numbers will grow as the career center begins to step up marketing efforts.
The curriculum helps develop both soft skills and problem-solving skills for students as they progress through the program, Saville said. On the technical side, students are introduced to processes such as pneumatics, mechatronics, and robotics, he said.
“There are so many different avenues and angles that students have a choice to go down,” Saville said. “There’s a job waiting at the end of each one. We want to give our kids a fighting chance to be qualified for these jobs.”
Choffin Career Center partnered with the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers’ Coalition to help with the program’s transition to the new space, added Alex Hertzer, executive director of MVMC.
“Choffin is a critical resource in our community,” Hertzer said. “Being able to support a program that creates real-life career pathways into high-wage jobs is something we definitely want to be a part of.”
MVMC, through an industry-sector partnership grant from the state of Ohio, donated $10,000 to support the move and set up the equipment, Hertzer said. Much of the equipment will be used to train students at the industrial maintenance technician level, he said.
“It’s really a full spectrum of mid-skill engineering level,” Hertzer noted.
Patrick Dinapoli, an instructor of advanced manufacturing at Choffin, said that under this program, students will have much more time to absorb and understand concepts of programmable logical controls — or PLCs — pneumatics, and hydraulics, three power sources that control machinery on a factory floor.
Indeed, Dinapoli said that the machinery is set up as a microcosm of a real factory, powered by automated equipment such as small-scale sorters with sensors that demonstrate how manufacturing plants are able to detect defective or potential problems.
“When you see equipment like this, it’s a mini-factory,” he said.
Understanding these concepts is vital to comprehending the manufacturing process of tomorrow, Dinapoli said. “Machines today can talk to each other,” he noted, emphasizing advances in technology that has enabled what is commonly referred to as Industry 4.0.
However, this technology is advancing at a rapid clip with the introduction of artificial intelligence, he said. “We’re talking about smart factories,” he said. “They’re actually working on Industry 5.0 and AI.”
Just as important is connecting these students with area employers once they graduate and finish the program, Choffin’s Saville said.
“The goal is getting them on the job and ready for working in industry and advanced manufacturing,” he said.
Pictured at top: Patrick Dinapoli , instructor at Choffin, stresses developing student’s problem solving skills.