Schools, manufacturers in this Michigan county are building the next generation of skilled trades workers

JACKSON, MI – Dominick Courtney’s decisiveness has served him well.

Since seventh grade, he spent his summers learning precision machining through the Machining U camps offered by the Jackson Area Manufacturers Association .

When he learned about the chance to earn internships and an associate degree as a machinist during high school through the Jackson Area College and Career Connection Early/Middle College Program - JAC3 for short – he jumped at the chance, spending his after-school hours running CNC lathes and mills at Orbitform.

Gathering all the skills and experience needed for his career field during high school, the Michigan Center High School junior said there’s no reason to delay the inevitable of entering the workforce as soon as he earns his degree and diploma through JAC3.

“Unless you want to go into upper management, you don’t need anything more than (an associates degree),” Courtney said. “There are plenty of companies who need machinists, so I had plenty to choose from.”

While Courtney and other participants in JAC3′s three-year program might be on the most direct track to entering the skilled trades workforce out of high school, there have been widespread efforts to create partnerships and connections between Jackson-area schools and local manufacturers as area businesses look to shore up an aging workforce.

For Lomar Machine & Tool Company, that has meant hiring six high school-aged apprentices per year instead of only offering apprenticeships to current employees, as it anticipates replacing a significant portion of its Baby Boomer workforce in the next one to five years, Human Resources Generalist Adriane Earl said.

“Not only do we have to replace them, but they take that knowledge with them,” Earl said. “We really need to get these young kids in here, not necessarily just to learn how to run a mill, but to learn what these people know as far as our what our specialty is.”

Skilled trades workers represent more than 15% of the Jackson metropolitan area’s jobs - significantly higher than the 6.1% national average - making it the area’s largest employee group, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Randi Watts sees signs the pendulum is swinging in favor of students who have targeted a “career pathway” in those types of careers - a more popular concept than when she began working at Northwest High School more than 20 years ago.

That means narrowing down students’ interests, particularly in the skilled trades areas, instead of automatically thinking they’ll pursue a four-year degree after graduation. At Northwest, enrollment has expanded in its STEM Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering program from 42 students six years ago to 136 this year.

“It kind of fell away for a while and now it’s back with a vengeance with more of a vocational tint to it,” said Watts, Northwest High’s College and Career Readiness coordinator. “It kind of went from, ‘Four-year college degree, everybody’s got to do that,’ to now, where it’s like ‘We need workers, we need construction people,’ and they might not need a four-year college degree.”

Meeting and anticipating demand

While the Jackson Area Career Center has the longest history of partnering with area manufacturers to grow the next generation of hands-on workers through its precision machine, welding and engineering programs, efforts have increased to expand those opportunities into other local schools.

East Jackson High School is one of 16 Michigan schools recently selected as grant recipients for SME PRIME (Partnership Response In Manufacturing Education) – an initiative between manufacturers and educators to build cost-effective and tailored manufacturing and engineering programs in high schools.

The grant will help East Jackson students earn industry certifications - much like they can through the career center - while they’re still in high school, as well as offer scholarships if they want to extend their training up to a four-year certification, Superintendent Steve Doerr said.

SME PRIME’s 2021 outcomes report shows that 89% of the program’s seniors nationwide pursued careers or education in manufacturing or engineering after graduation.

At Northwest, the aim is to help students build skills to lead them toward “high tech, high skill, high wage,” careers, STEM Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering instructor Albert Rossner said.

The district’s program can set students on several paths, including the career center, dual enrollment at Jackson College or JAC3, Rossner said, adding that possibilities exist in a plethora of other skilled trades beyond what even those programs have to offer.

Northwest’s program has received significant advising and financial support from Jackson-based Technique, Inc., which specializes in prototype manufacturing of metal stampings, industrial tube bending and laser cutting services.

Technique has helped Northwest develop its curriculum and has provided people to help with classroom instruction, Rossner said, with the intention of building a pipeline of future employees.

“Probably 12 of our kids are working (at Technique) right now, part time,” Rossner said. “We have graduates that are working there full time as technicians, making over $20 an hour with no degree, or they’re working on a degree.”

The common denominator in the partnerships between the private sector and public schools in Jackson County has been JAMA.

The manufacturers association has sought to make connections with students at an early age through “I Can Make It!” camp, Machining U and its partnerships with the Shop Rat Foundation, which offers an after-school activities for sixth- to 10th-graders interested in expanding their knowledge of tools, machinery and skilled trades.

The outreach to create a stronger employee pipeline in the Jackson area has largely been industry driven, JAMA Vice President Olivia Steele said.

“Those employers are begging to get into schools, begging to help support them in any way that they can,” Steele said. “I’m hearing from them that they’re hurting. I was in a company a couple weeks ago and they said half of their workforce is going to retire in the next five years. That’s a huge concern.”

Is the interest there?

Students participating in the career center’s primary industry-based programs have many reasons for pursuing the programs they’re enrolled in.

All of Lauren Meyer’s uncles are welders, she said, influencing her to begin welding in her garage at age 7 before ultimately enrolling in the career center’s welding program.

She wants to be a sheriff’s deputy, however, and currently is enrolled in the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department’s Explorer Program. Welding is something she can do to earn money while she earns an associate’s degree in law enforcement, she said.

“I think there will always be welding jobs,” said Meyer, a Michigan Center High School junior. “It’s always something to fall back onto if you need it.”

Concord High School senior Ethan Randall said he enrolled in the career center’s precision machining program because of his interest in math.

The program has helped him learn practical skills he can take directly into the workforce, he said, even if he’s still not sure whether he’ll go directly into machining or earn a business degree first to run his own shop.

“I’ve learned two years of practical skills I can use in the workforce,” Randall said. “Even if I don’t like (running a CNC mill), it’s a good job to have if I’m going to pursue something further into the industry.”

Interest in skilled trades careers has started to pick back up after enrollment dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic when hands-on programs were relegated to a computer screen, Dan Draper, the career center’s assistant principal of career technical education, said.

JAC3 has generally maintained yearly groups of seven to 13 students per class, while the career center’s manufacturing-based programs have averaged around 105 students per class the past five years.

With Lomar looking to fill entry level machinist jobs students can fill out of high school, Earl said the Horton-based machine and tool company is making more direct efforts to entice them. Sweetening the deal is the promise of a stable career that doesn’t require a four-year degree, while Lomar pays for them to earn their journeyman card.

“We really don’t see a lot of those resumes coming in for students that want to go into manufacturing right out of high school,” Earl said. “We’re trying to change that mindset of (having) to go to college rather than they just come here.”

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