New skill sets needed for manufacturing

WESTMINSTER – The economic upheaval of recent years sculpted a new landscape for many regions across the nation. In Colorado that’s meant a stream of manufacturing jobs returning to the area, leaving a gap between available positions and trained people to fill them.

Front Range Community College wants to bridge that divide with a new industry-inspired manufacturing technology training program.

The program offers 128 hours of training geared toward manufacturing principles, such as quality management, metrology, blueprint reading, machining and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, according to Claudia Ossola, director of corporate solutions at Front Range Community College.

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Launched in mid-October at the college’s Westminster campus, the manufacturing technology training program is rooted in industry demand.

“The program began with some conversation with a group of companies from the Adams County Manufacturers Association,” Ossola said. Companies who had jobs, but not trained workers. Discussions of what local industry leaders, such as Ascent Solar Technologies Inc. in Thorton, Intrex Aerospace in Louisville and Mountainside Medical Colorado in Boulder, needed from employees germinated the course curricula.

“(Companies) defined the skill set and key content or knowledge areas, and we turned that into a program,” Ossola said.

The program mimics a manufacturing floor, Ossola said, having a product in mind and following it through the manufacturing process from beginning to end.

Five employees from Mountainside Medical – a contract manufacturer of high-tech medical parts and instruments such as those used in arthroscopy or plates used to treat injuries – are enrolled in the program, said Pete Neidecker, senior vice president at Mountainside Medical. The Front Range Community College manufacturing technology programs should teach his employees what they need to make his company more efficient and better able to meet customer demand.

“What this does for us is for a reasonable amount of money we can send a number of people to get the type of training that doesn’t really exist anywhere else in Colorado,” Neidecker said. The program costs about $2,000 per student, and while his company is paying tuition, the students attend classes in the evening and weekends, essentially donating their time for the training.

“It really shows some drive and motivation,” Neidecker said.

Today’s manufacturing jobs don’t smack of the stereotype of past manufacturing work, Neidecker said.

“It’s not dirty anymore. It’s high tech. It’s aerospace and green tech and very, very clean,” Neidecker said. “We’re after brain skills rather than hand skills.” Today’s manufacturing jobs use advanced machinery, computer programming and require precision down to ten-thousandths of an inch. Math skills are a must, and Front Range requires some aptitude testing for students entering the program.

Salaries start around $20,000, but earning potentially jumps significantly, Neidecker said, to $70,000 or more. He calls it a career not just a job.

It’s the career Clark Gentry chose. He’s been in the industry for years and hopes to stay with his current company, Intrex Aerospace, until retirement. He calls the course a great opportunity and said the course will make him better at his current position as a planner scheduler.

“I hope it opens doors for other positions that can help me move up in the company, too,” Gentry said.

The class is offered on evenings and weekends to allow already working folks to attend, and course end dates sync with times employers will be looking to hire, Ossola said. Something that’s possible in part because the manufacturing technology program is a non-credit course. The course will be offered several times over the next few years, Ossola said, and students will be offered a chance to meet prospective employers. The workplace-ready program design includes interpersonal skills instruction, too.

“We kick off the class with some soft skills … around personal contribution, good communication, team work, accountability and good work ethic,” Ossola said.

Industry driven training programs worked for Front Range Community College in the past. Tom Miller, the director of Workforce Boulder County, said it’s an important niche filled by the colleges. Workforce Boulder County is a government funded employment and training agency serving the Boulder area. In the past Front range Community College offered bioscience and green energy training “boost” programs designed in conjunction with industry needs.

“The relationship with Front Range has been very good,” Miller said. “They’ve been very responsive and they listen to employers.”

The high-tech manufacturing jobs in Boulder County have helped keep Boulder’s unemployment rate hovering around 6.5 percent, Miller said, compared to the national rate of 9.1 percent. Ossola calls the manufacturing growth “the perfect storm” of economic factors, including energy jobs in Colorado, focused government attention on job creation, grant dollars and the ability of community colleges to shift rapidly to meet training needs.

“Many counties in metropolitan areas across the country would love to have a 6.5 percent unemployment rate,” Miller said. “It’s because of the density of technology here, and I think Front Range helps keep us competitive.”