ELYRIA, Ohio — When you think of training the next generation of manufacturers, you probably think of a dark, often dirty, loud environment—not the sterile, cap, mask, gown and gloves setting at Lorain County Community College's microelectronic manufacturing program, one of a handful in the country.
"For what we do in microelectronic manufacturing, I would say it's one of the most unique in the midwest," said Assistant Professor Johnny Vanderford. The program begins teaching the students the skills they'll need to fill the jobs that are open now.
"Week one, day one, they're in the laboratory. We put a soldering iron in one hand, a pair of tweezers in the other hand and we say 'let's build circuit boards, let's get you trained to work for these companies,'" he said. "These companies are hungry for a workforce, let's start training them right away rather than offering general education classes, calculus, quantum physics, things that most companies they don't need."
It's what attracted Josh Eschke of North Ridgeville to the program. "I love all of this hands on work and it actually feels like I'm moving towards a position somewhere," he said.
Yes that's almost guaranteed, the program works with 82 companies across Northeast Ohio that are ready to offer the program's graduates immediate employment. As a result over the last nine years, Vanderford said "we have had 100% job placement for all graduates of both our associates degrees and our bachelors degree."
On top of that 80% of the students who have completed their first year are also working part-time in the industry. The next generation of manufacturers in this room on this day literally spans all generations from 16 to 68. Russell Rozak, of Sheffield Lake, being the latter. He says you're never too old to learn.
"Technology now is so advanced it left me behind for awhile until I started going to school and I'm opening up doors and learning fields and areas that I've never seen before," Rozak said.
Senator Sherrod Brown got a first hand look at the training being done and with Intel bringing thousands of these jobs to the state and these workers already basically spoken for is the state in a position to fill them?
"It's a challenge that is going to be hard but we will do it and I think you start with this," Brown said. "We have a federal government that is putting a real emphasis on manufacturing; we finally have a real national manufacturing industrial policy. We saw all of these manufacturing jobs, companies shut down or move. First they went south for cheap labor then they went to China and Mexico—we're seeing that turn around now—finally this new industrial policy."
The folks at Lorain County Community College made it clear they're ready to play their part.
"We need to continue to grow as the job sector grows as well," said Vanderford. "With Intel coming here it means that we've got to be able to offer more training and experience to our community to be able to get them hired in at Intel and their supplier partners."
RELATED: Intel breaks ground on $20B semiconductor site, Ohio leaders react to the new 'Silicon Heartland'
You can watch more about Intel's groundbreaking in Ohio in the player below:
