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| Employment and Training Administration Assistant Secretary Jane Oates, right, of the U.S. Department of Labor, speaks with Nashua Community College President Lucille Jordan, center, and Mark Dodge, associate professor, on October 19. (courtesy photo) |
$19.9 million grant awarded to Great Bay & six other community colleges
NASHUA –
“Manufacturing creates wealth,” said the U.S. Department of
Labor’s assistant secretary for the Employment and Training Administration,
Jane Oates.
She checked last week at Nashua Community College on
progress made statewide under a $19.9 million federal Trade Adjustment
Assistance Community College and Career Training grant awarded to Great Bay
Community College in Portsmouth, and the six other colleges in the Community
College System of New Hampshire.
“Health care, education - they’re great, but manufacturing
simply creates more wealth,” she said. “We need to make sure we keep it out
front.”
William “Rick” Holka, president of Omni Components Corp. in
Hudson, agreed.
“There’s nothing we touch every day that hasn’t been
machined,” he said, adding the community colleges have made “absolutely
fantastic advances in infrastructure” under the grant for their advanced manufacturing
programs.
During her visit, Oates toured NCC’s advanced manufacturing
laboratory and met with school officials, advanced manufacturing business
leaders and students positively impacted by the community college system.
A newly renovated teaching laboratory, its floors quite
literally sparkling underneath state-of-the-art computer-controlled precision
machining equipment, was called not only proof of the early success of an
educational partnership between local manufacturers and the school consortium,
but also evidence to support a stigma-busting mission taken on by the colleges
on behalf of the industry.
For one, advanced manufacturing is healthy in New Hampshire,
representing nearly twenty percent of the state’s entire economy, according to
the N.H. Center for Public Policy Studies. In fact, employers poised for growth
said a main challenge they face is not a lack of demand, but a shortage of
qualified applicants for high-tech, high skill jobs. Reasons for the shortage
are varied, but two main concerns of employers and the community colleges are a
misperception that manufacturing is an unstable industry of repetitive,
low-skill jobs and low enrollment in core science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) academic programming.
Contrary to beliefs, Oates said, “It’s not enough to have a
strong body. You need a strong mind and a skilled hand.”
James Jacobs, president of Rapid Machining, said of his
27,000-square-foot facility with more than twenty computer numerical controlled
milling and turning centers, “It’s not a dark, oily, dirty place; it’s a
high-tech environment, it’s a good wage.”
Mark Dodge, associate professor for advanced manufacturing
tool technology at NCC, said during a recent interview “Our grads can expect
between $14 and $15 an hour to start. A good machinist could go to $30 or $35
an hour. Typically, there’s overtime - five to 10 hours a week - so even at $15
an hour, that’s a pretty substantial paycheck for a beginning job. For an
experienced machinist, $80,000 to $100,000 is not out of the questions for a
year’s pay.”
“As we continue to expand,” Jacobs said, “the ability to
hire CNC machinists with the right skills will be critical to our success.”
Jacobs said partnering with community colleges in the state
will help ensure a pool of qualified machinists will be available in the
future.
Said Holka, “If you can do precision machining, we are
hiring.” He added he had seven to eight jobs he’d fill today if applicants
qualified to operate his Swiss-type machining equipment were available.
Omni manufactures products for the medical, aerospace,
optical, communications, electronics, instrumentation and commercial high-tech
markets.
Oates called the qualified-employee shortage “a national
crisis.”
“You can’t wait,” she said to the employers seeking
qualified applicants. “We need to make sure everyone’s working together to
eliminate the workforce slowdown. It’s amazing; you could grow if you (just)
had the people.”
And that, in Oates’ view, is the importance of the grant.
She said community college training programs were in need of a paradigm change.
The new measure for success would need to be employment and, thus, employer
input would need to be a central part of an updated and expanded advanced
manufacturing curriculum.
Congress agreed, and in 2010, President Obama signed off on
$2 billion to be used over four years for the nationwide TAACCCT grant program.
The payoffs are already obvious, she said, citing examples
in which community college initiatives have benefited entities from large
manufacturers like Pratt & Whitney, Toyota North America and Johnson &
Johnson to individual students like Orlando Morales, who is working full time
for Rapid Machining while enrolled in advanced manufacturing program at NCC.
Morales said he’d been working retail jobs for years when he
decided he wanted something more. With the support of his wife, he enrolled in
the CNC program at NCC and took part in a tour of Rapid Machining.
Now, Jacobs jokes Morales is “not going anywhere,” as he’s a
valued employee who came to the company already prepared with skills necessary
for success.
“The math classes were valuable,” Morales said about the
education he’s receiving at NCC. “It’d been eight years since I’d been in
(advanced) math, and it refreshed my memory.”
When he started at Rapid, Morales said the work was exactly
the type he’d been trained for in the community college system.
“What you said made me jump up and down – that (businesses)
were doing exactly the same thing outside” the schools,” said Oates. ”That’s
what we’re working for (with this grant); we aim to have ninety-five percent of
students ready to go straight into a job.”
The seven community colleges in the New Hampshire consortium
are designing and implementing expanded programs in advanced materials
(composites, aerospace) manufacturing technologies, mechatronics and
automation/robotics, precision welding, advanced machine tool technology,
energy systems for precision manufacturing, and advanced manufacturing
processes and controls.
Offerings run the gamut from fast-track job preparation and
certification services from WorkReadyNH, to short course and certification
programs, to full associate’s degree educational tracks.
As part of the grant, state-of-the-art equipment and
technology upgrades are being made at colleges across the state, with direct
input from regional manufacturers who will be relying upon the program to help
create a qualified workforce for hiring.
While progress is quickly being made at all sites, NCC had a
leg up, according to its president, Lucille Jordan.
“When other colleges were closing their machining programs,
we never did,” she said. “We were ready to run as soon as we got the grant.”
Other advanced manufacturing program milestones on the
horizon include the opening of Great Bay Community College’s Advanced
Technology and Academic Center in Rochester, which will educate and train
students in composites manufacturing ahead of the opening of a
340,000-square-foot production facility being built in that city by Safran
Aerospace Composites and Albany Engineered Composites. The project is expected
to generate more than 400 jobs.
At Manchester Community College, computer and machining
equipment is purchased and ready to be installed in a newly renovated student
laboratory as the school works to expand its advanced manufacturing courses and
course types.
