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Community Colleges Can Help Small Firms With Job Training

Widespread layoffs and a slack economy have employers breathing easier about the labor shortage that
prevailed in recent years. But that isn’t likely to last for long.

By JEFF BAILEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

(I’ve been requested to rerun this article. Is your company taking advantage of the strengths of our Montana colleges? – Russ)

As the economy picks up, the nation’s relatively low jobless rate and its historical scarcity in some particular
skills are expected to produce significant worker shortages again.

Smaller companies often suffer the most in a tight labor market. Hiring in smaller numbers, a small business
has a hard time getting noticed by job seekers. And smaller firms often feel they lack the resources needed
to assemble in-house training programs that can boost skills and alleviate the need to hire. So, before the
shortage hits again, it is a good time for many entrepreneurs to get acquainted with a huge but often
overlooked source of motivated workers and training resources: community colleges.

The nation’s 1,151 community colleges enroll some 10 million people during any given year, many of them —
average age 29 — trying to assemble some job skills after having worked at less-satisfying tasks in early
adulthood. In many areas, the schools are also dedicated to working directly with individual employers, even
small ones, to train existing workers and help find and train new ones. The colleges grant more than 450,000
associate degrees and nearly 200,000 two-year certificates annually. (To find a community college, visit
http://www.aacc.nche.edu.)

In Phoenix, it’s not a surprise that a big company like PepsiCo
Inc. has set up its own training program with
community-college help. Its 300-worker Gatorade factory in
suburban Tolleson, Ariz., and a neighboring container
manufacturer, host an electricity-theory class taught by an
instructor from Maricopa Community Colleges. They held math
classes last fall.

The PepsiCo plant badly needs skilled maintenance people to
keep up its sophisticated machinery, says Cheryl Less,
employee- and community-relations manager. The jobs require
high levels of training and pay $14 to $23 an hour, yet they are
hard to fill. "Many people still believe a maintenance worker is
a janitor," Ms. Lees says. She would prefer the classes be at
the community college, but the Maricopa campus nearest — the system has 10 colleges and two so-called
skill centers — doesn’t have the equipment the PepsiCo work force needs. So, the instructor travels to the
students.

More surprising is the sophisticated work-force development program at Jet Products Co., an 87-worker
aerospace machining concern with just $10 million in annual sales. Jet sends its existing workers to
Maricopa campuses for software training. And the company dips into local high schools — one is across the street — for part-time workers who,
in large numbers, stay on to become full-time employees.

Right now, Jet has nine high-schoolers each working 20 hours a week — 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Thursday, to preserve their weekend
social life, says Jim Perlow, vice president and general manager. The juniors and seniors earn $7.75 an hour as well as high-school credit.

The high-school students spend the first three weeks, paid, watching and learning. Then, they are put to work with supervision, and are "50%
productive" immediately and "100% productive by the end of the first semester," Mr. Perlow says.

Mr. Perlow expects all nine will join Jet full time after high school, attend Maricopa classes to improve their skills, and stick around for three to
four years. He says one in four of his high-school workers eventually becomes a long-term worker. "More than half of our employees have never
worked anywhere else," he says. "We seldom, if ever, run an ad for help."

Skilled machinists are constantly in short supply, Mr. Perlow says. Apprentices start at $8 an hour, and certified skilled machinists earn
between $14 and $20 an hour.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Kirkwood Community College is part of a development consortium known as the Workplace Learning Connection that
helps 700 local companies recruit and train young workers.

Increasingly popular with employers are internships. The consortium screens and prepares high-school students for a semester-long program
that exposes students to a workplace and gives a company a chance to look the kids over, too.

Brian Whitlatch, now 20 years old, "needed a filler credit" in his final semester at high school in Tipton, Iowa, and took an internship at the Iowa
80 Truck Stop working on big rigs. He watched mechanics work and fetched parts, without pay, and three weeks before graduating was offered
a job. He started by changing oil and tires and made $15,000 his first year. "Now I do everything except alignments and air conditioning," Mr.
Whitlatch says, and he earned $30,000 last year.

For Iowa 80 Truck Stop, it was less costly than importing a seasoned mechanic to the area, which has a chronic worker shortage.

St. Luke’s Hospital, a 500-bed facility in Cedar Rapids, also uses high-school students with hopes of hiring them after graduation and sending
them to Kirkwood or one of three local four-year schools for nursing training. Tai Benson, 21, interned at St. Luke’s in high school, switched to
full-time work after graduation, and got her two-year nursing degree at Kirkwood while working. With a nurse shortage, she works about 50
hours a week and makes $16 an hour.

"I’m taking a breather," Ms. Benson says. But in the fall of 2003, she plans to begin a one-year program at the nearby University of Iowa that
will bring her a four-year nursing degree.

Write to Jeff Bailey at [email protected]

Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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