Education & Training

My phone barely goes a day without a company calling to find some new employees.  I have companies contact me from all over New York State.  I wish we had another 50 students going through our machining program to help meet the need.  We do have the largest spring enrollment we have seen in many years and I hope this trend continues.

President Obama’s call for community colleges to help train the struggling skilled workforce has brought greater attention to the need.  I believe this need is slowly trickling down to K – 12 education system.  There seems to be more interest from high schools to expose students’ to technical career paths.  I have been invited to high schools to talk about careers in advanced manufacturing and have done a few school tours here at the ATC already this year.

There are four different training programs that are planned for this summer.  Ross Micali is running a eight week job readiness training for machining skills at MCC’s ATC and a six week optics training in MCC’s Building 9.  Kevin Kelley and I are working on a six week program for Edison Tech students that will be held at the ATC.  I am also working with FAME and we are planning a three week training at WEMOCO in Spencerport.  Each of these programs will include manual machine skills, machine math and print reading along with employee skills.  Ross’s programs will prepare unemployed individuals for employment upon completion of the program.  The other two programs are youth oriented and designed to expose more kids to these exciting careers.  All of these programs will contain company visits as part of the curriculum.

As the skilled shortage continues to grow, we are continually looking at other ways to identify and train new, well trained employees.

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