Apprentices Shape Metal to Form Their Future
BOARDMAN, Ohio -- It’s a cold Thursday night early this month at 200 McClurg Road, where 20-some young men have put in a full day of physically and mentally demanding work.
Here in the Youngstown district building of Local 33 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, the apprentices and a couple of journeymen will spend another 3 hours with Robert Yarab on improving their skills.
Paul Ziegler, 27, of Niles and a fifth-year apprentice is trying to finish a hot dog and french fries as he greets Yarab, the apprenticeship coordinator, and answer a reporter’s questions.
Ziegler, who has an associate degree in HVAC – heating, ventilation and air conditioning – relates how what’s he learned as an apprentice has “built up my confidence. I can look at a print and go to town. I can put up whatever they show me.”
Yarab, in his first year as apprenticeship coordinator, points to the projects throughout the bay area and remarks, “It’s a flat piece of metal when we get it and we turn it into what you see.”
“What you see” is stainless steel, galvanized steel, aluminum and black iron the sheet metal workers have fabricated and installed. This metal has been shaped as ductwork, heaters and boilers, electric box shells and air conditioning parts.
The work is spread over three areas on the ground floor: a sheet metal layout and installation shop, a welding laboratory and HVAC service department. The second floor has two classrooms and a computer lab. The building has 19,000 square feet of floor space.
In the classrooms, the apprentices are taught safety – OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 classes – setting up riggings, crane signaling, and how to read plans and specifications.
Welding seems to be the activity the apprentices enjoy most. Yarab was a welder before he became an instructor. “I liked welding,” he says. “It was a lot of fun.” Still, only 20% of the work sheet metal workers perform involves welding, he estimates.
Yarab began to learn welding as a student at Boardman High School. He became a sheet metal worker after serving in the Marine Corps as a mortar man.
“This is an accredited school,” he notes. The credits apprentices earn during their 1,044 hours of classroom instruction over five years translates into both credits at Owens Community College in Toledo and a state certificate. The certificate “means you’re registered with the state,” Yarab explains.
The remainder of their apprenticeships consists of OJT – on-the-job training – 6,000 hours over five years. The 6,000 hours breaks down to three hours of work inside for each hour spent outside, which means inclement weather isn’t much of a hindrance to working year-round.
The credits at Owens lead to an associate degree in engineering, the coordinator says. Yarab and the two other instructors administer tests in the classrooms and they’re graded as any college test would be evaluated.
Local 33 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association consists of nine districts across northern Ohio from Toledo to Vermillion and Cleveland before extending south into Wheeling and Charleston, W.Va.
With the tools on their tool belts – a tinner’s hammer, snips, tongs, crescent wrench, tape measure, screw driver and a divider – these men can accurately transform a piece of sheet metal into nearly any shape to fit nearly any purpose in commercial buildings, strip plazas, schools and hospitals.
Their employers provide any other tools they might need, including cordless drills, the coordinator says.
The employers underwrite their tuition, books, and the materials the apprentices fashion in the training area but they are responsible for the purchase and upkeep of their tools.
While the metal workers can handle base plates and I-beams up to 3 inches thick, Yarab says, the ductwork is 24-gauge and heavier.
To become an apprentice, the applicant must graduate from high school (or have earned a G.E.D.) with a minimum of first-year algebra and geometry, Yarab says. That’s just to qualify for the apprenticeship exam.
The committee that reviews applicants who meet the cutoff score “looks for advanced math classes,” he says, “their attendance records in school and their work history. We like to see where they show initiative and their ability to learn and understand.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story first appeared in The Business Journal's February edition.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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