This time last month, Brian Turner was homeless, unemployed and contemplating suicide. Now, the 52-year-old veteran is earning enough to pay rent on a small apartment and imagining a future in advanced manufacturing.
Turner is a student in a new training program run by the Region 4 Workforce Board and Purdue Polytechnic Institute, in collaboration with local manufacturers. Funded by a $7.6 million, four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, the program is designed to prepare people who’ve been out of work for months for stable, assembly line positions.
Over the course of the 16-week program — known as Rapid Reemployment for Advanced Manufacturing Positions — participants go from training in basic work skills, including resume writing, to learning the ropes of advanced manufacturing. After they complete classroom training, they interview for internships with local manufacturers, including Subaru Indiana Automotive Inc., Wabash National Corp., voestalpine Rotec. and Donaldson Co. The goal is to prepare students for long-term employment with those companies or others in the region.
Turner, who said he served as a medic in the Navy, was laid off in January from a job doing blood transfusions. He struggled to find a new job, and he lost his apartment in April.
“I’m 52 years old, and it’s very hard to find work, especially when you don’t have a permanent address,” said Turner, who was homeless for the first weeks of RAMP. He shuttled between classes and shelters, studying at Lafayette Transitional Housing Center. “That still made it kind of hard, but it was worth it. It was worth is because I’ve been able to work my way back up.”
Turner is in the program’s second class. They are studying manufacturing at Purdue Polytechnic Institute. They will graduate Friday and hopefully continue on to manufacturing internships.
The lessons RAMP students study at Purdue Polytechnic are adapted from classes that would typically be taught to assembly line workers moving into leadership positions, said Dan Taylor, the SIA trainer running the class.