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Laurel Technical Opens Industrial Maintenance Lab
SHARON, Pa. -- During the heyday of steelmaking in the Shenango Valley, demand for welders, fabricators, fitters and industrial maintenance workers reached its zenith, Larry Haynes, executive director of the Community Foundation, said Wednesday.
Haynes delivered his remarks at the ribbon cutting at the new industrial maintenance laboratory of Laurel Technical Institute, 200 Sterling Ave. Its first class begins Sept. 22 when the fall semester opens.
What many didn’t realize, Haynes continued, was those mills also served as the best educational and training vehicles for the industrial workforce. When the industry began its retrenchment in the late 1970s, the challenge to fill that need was daunting. “What we didn’t understand was that each mill was a school. We had to bridge the gap,” Haynes says.
One result is initiatives such as Laurel Technical Institute’s new industrial maintenance lab.
“Employer demand is huge,” relates Doug Decker, executive director at Laurel Technical. “The student side is a little slow. We’ll start out with four to five for the first class.”
School officials, students, instructors, business and community leaders and officeholders joined Decker to celebrate the new program and workspace.
Laurel Technical, best known for programs related to business administration, information technology and medical technology, moved into its new building in 2012 because it needed the classroom space, Decker recalled. However, the building was also constructed to take into consideration the future needs of the industrial trades, he says.
“By 2020, there’ll be 4,500 industrial maintenance openings in Pennsylvania,” Decker said, citing a recent study. “So, we started to look at the trades.”
The school started with its welding program last fall and enrollment in that discipline has since more than doubled. “We started with six, and 15 will start the program this fall,” Haynes reported.
Welding instructor John Monroe says all of the students were approved for certification. While demand for welders remains strong among companies engaged in the oil and gas industry, it’s also likely that demand will increase in the near-term because of the need to repair the country’s crumbling infrastructure. “A lot of these students take comfort in knowing there’ll be jobs when they finish,” Monroe said.
An industrial maintenance program serves to complement the industrial welding curricula, Decker says. More and more, employers are searching for workers with more than one skill such as electrical, automation and other disciplines that can address several problems. “Employers need someone with multi-craft training,” he remarked.
Students this fall will be trained in automation, electrical and mechanical operations on equipment installed in the workshop, he says.
The industrial workspace occupies some 6,000 square feet, divided between the welding operations and the new industrial maintenance section, Decker says. The welding program has expanded this year to two welding booths.
Decker expects enrollment to hit about 180 students the fall semester.
“Our goal is to be the first school employers look to for their hiring needs,” he states.
Pictured: Larry Haynes, executive director of the Community Foundation, Nancy Decker, CEO of Laurel Technical Institute, and Doug Decker, executive director of LTI.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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