Changing the face of manufacturing

Traffic in and out of the Crossroads Industrial Park on the north side of Bucyrus is fairly steady these days. All that activity, however, fails to reflect reality for a lot of the manufacturers located there.

The fact is they're hurting — for workers.

"If you've got some skills, they are definitely interested in hiring you, there's no doubt about it. We've got too many temps. That's not good for your overall workforce," Doug Leuthold, president of Advanced Fiber Technology, said.

"I know everyone would like to minimize the percentage of temps and have more direct hires. If you can show up on time, you're not on drugs or alcohol and you follow instructions, you're going to get a job. Now how tough are those three things?"

Leuthold was speaking as he waited for a busload of eighth-graders from Bucyrus City Schools to arrive at his company, participants in the second phase of Crawford: 20/20 Vision's WAGE program.

WAGE stands for Workforce Awareness for Graduates and Educators. Last October, several Bucyrus schoolteachers got the program started as they were given tours of four manufacturers in the Crossroads park — Advanced Fiber, Arctic Cat, IB-Tech and BPT. The eighth-graders had their turn Thursday, and will be debriefed next week on what they thought about what they saw and learned.

"The idea for this emerged from retention and expansion surveys we did with local businesses. It was a real eye-opener in terms of the challenges they're having finding new employees. And they're having a tremendous amount of turnover. We started to look at multiple things that influence that turnover," Leuthold said.

"In the course of these discussions it became pretty evident that there was a disconnect between the perception of educators, graduates and the business community. There's a perception out there that manufacturing is dirty, it's dying, it's dead. We've got robots, we've got high tech, we've got all sorts of job opportunities. The message isn't getting out there well."

The WAGE program, which is beginning this academic year with the cooperation of Bucyrus schools, is connecting with eighth-graders because should a student decide to pursue a technical profession, the decision to enter a school such as Pioneer Career and Technology Center, in Shelby, is going to be made during that student's sophomore year.

The program is unique, at least locally, in that it's not a state or federal initiative. The idea started here, with some financial help from AEP.

"I think there's a message there, that our local community can solve these problems themselves if they get the heart invested in it. Some state or federal money would've helped, don't get me wrong, but we did it ourselves," Dave Williamson, Crawford: 20/20 Vision director, said.

"I don't think you need to be overly complicated. The simplicity of this program is beautiful, its effectiveness and its design. It shows that a lot of the solutions are right in front of our noses," Bucyrus Mayor Jeff Reser said.

WAGE organizers also are bringing the potential for student internships into the mix.

"There are opportunities for tuition reimbursement (with employers), that's been going on for years, and I think now with the internship interest you're going to see more opportunities along that line. There are jobs that require you to be a four-year engineer, there's no question about that, but there are a lot of jobs that don't require that. It requires interest and attitude," Williamson said.

"You're going to find that most all the businesses are going to be doing additional training. The learning process never stops," Leuthold said.

"And you're going to have a lot of it closer to home with the Success Center," Williamson added.

The Crawford Success Center, a satellite of North Central State College in Shelby, is scheduled to open in Bucyrus next fall.

Ultimately, the WAGE program will include other sectors of the local economy beyond simply manufacturing, although those companies do account for a third of all local jobs. And Wynford Schools have expressed an interest in getting their students involved next year as well.

"We want to hit every school in the county and we want to do it every year, so it's a sizable commitment that we're going to make," Leuthold said.

"If we see the interest sparked we've then got to channel it and we've got to continue to have touch points with those kids all the way through the remaining years of their high school to help them. We can't just do this as a one-time deal and assume we've done our thing."

thill3@nncogannett.com

419-563-9225

Twitter: @ToddHillMNJ