People who complain about a lack of good jobs are not paying much attention. Skilled workers are in high demand in Henry County. The New Castle Career Center has teamed up with seven local manufacturers to turn the machine trades program into an employment pipeline.
“The skill trades and industry is becoming very crucial, and all the businesses are extremely concerned about how they’re going to find skilled workers to fill their positions,” said NCCC director Bob Hobbs. “People don’t think there are manufacturing jobs, but there is a good demand for it.”
The machinist workforce is aging. Local shops are forecasting dozens of retirements in the next decade, creating a “tremendous demand” for young skilled workers, Hobbs said. Seven second-year students in the NCCC machine trades program already have jobs at local machine shops, and they don’t graduate high school for at least another month.
The local shops involved with the jobs initiative are JM Manufacturing, Rushville; Element Materials Technology, Daleville; Hoosier Feeder, Knightstown; Chesterfield Tool & Engineering, Chesterfield; Delaware Dynamics, Muncie; Magna Machine & Tool, New Castle; and Crowne Equipment, New Castle.
The New Castle Career Center recently received $140,000 in grants to replace equipment in the machine trades workshop. Hobbs said much of the current equipment was donated to the vocational program from Chrysler. With the grant money and input from local employers, Hobbs plans to replace six lathes, four mills and a surface grinder.
Students in the machine trades program learn specialized skills that depend on applied math skills and exact measurements, such as milling and machining. Hobbs said skilled machinists can earn $60,000 to 100,000 annually and are in high demand all over the country. The NCCC machine trades program can support up to 30 students per year, separated into two classes.
New Castle’s Kirk Robbins graduated from the machine trades program in 1978. Robbins began working at Magna Machine & Tool while he was still a vocational student. Robbins worked his way up through Magna and is today the company president, as well as co-owner. Governor Mike Pence appointed Robbins to the District 6 Indiana Work Council in 2013. The New Castle-Henry County Chamber of Commerce named Magna Machine & Tool the 2014 Business of the Year in March.
“Within the past decade, we’ve had 17 employees at one time who had graduated out of the Career Center,” Robbins said. “The initiative to get new state-of-the-art equipment will allow the kids to be more employable right out of school. I think there are manufacturing jobs out there that are going unfilled. What it boils down to is that students have got to learn a skill. In my mind, that starts with hands on in a vocational program.
“Having a manufacturing background, I feel you’ve got to manufacture something to create value,” Robbins added. “I believe in manufacturing. It has clothed me and fed my kids my whole life.”
The NCCC machine trades teaching position is also open. Current instructor Paul Lanzer is retiring at the end of the school year. Hobbs said the new instructor does not need a traditional teaching license.
“The teaching license in career programs is based off work experience,” Hobbs explained. “If they can show me that they have work experience in machining, then they can obtain a teaching license from that.”
Applicants for the machine trades teaching position need to have at least three years of work experience.