Need skilled workers? Talk to the guidance counselor

Seven years ago, Otto Engineering Inc. started partnering with a local high school near the company's headquarters in Carpentersville, Ill., on a work-study training program. Seniors could enroll in the program during their second semester, spending one hour a day gaining experience at Otto while earning school credit. The curriculum covered everything from business ethics and reading a blueprint to how to solder.

"I would guarantee the student a job when he [or she] graduated high school," Tom Roeser, president of Otto Engineering, said in a telephone interview.

"An example of somebody who went through that program is a young man who works for us today," Roeser continued. "He's 28 years old. He started that way, and he makes $75,000 [a year]."

Otto, a vertically integrated manufacturing company that employs 500, makes industrial controls and audio accessories for demanding applications in heavy equipment, aerospace, marine, medical, communications and other markets. Everything is done in-house, including injection molding, stamping, CNC machining, cable assembly and cable overmolding.

Roeser's father, Jack, started the company in 1961 in the basement of his Park Ridge, Ill., home with an initial investment of $5,000. Using his previous experience with the military, business and engineering, Jack designed and sold pushbutton and rotary switches. Roeser joined the company in 1987 as general manager, assuming responsibility of the company's daily activities.

Today, the top 100 employees with some college education average $131,000 in their paychecks, Roeser said.

"But the top 100 employees [without a college degree] average $78,000," he added. "And these are good jobs and typical middle America jobs."

Median household income in 2016 was $55,322, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And Korn Ferry, a recruiting firm in Los Angeles, reported that average salaries for college graduates in 2017 were at "an all-time high" in at least the last 10 years at $49,785, according to a study by its Hay Group division.

At Otto, workers without a college degree are earning nearly 57 percent above the average salary of those recent college graduates. But Roeser is still facing an ongoing problem affecting nearly every corner of manufacturing: a lack of qualified workers to fill soon-to-be open positions as older workers retire.

"How long do you think it's going to be until you go call up a plumber and say, 'I need a plumber today. My toilet is all plugged up.' And he says, 'Oh, I can come next Thursday, but not before then,'" Roeser said. "It's going to happen because we've told all of our kids to go to college, and we have been disparaging of what people would call 'the trades.'"

Roeser doesn't call them the trades anymore, however. He refers to it as the "essential workers."

Larry Follman, molding supervisor at Otto, is one of those workers. He's been with the company for 19 years and leads a team in the molding division. He said nearly half of his staff is in the 19-21 age range.

Otto has 16 injection molding machines, ranging from 28-120 tons. The company uses presses from Niigata Machine Techno Co. Ltd. and Arburg Inc., among others.

But it's not often a young person approaches an Otto employee with an interest in becoming a mold tech, for example, said Anthony Scianna Jr., senior procurement specialist at the company.

"The younger generation these days, it's harder to find people going into tool and die and trades like that," he added.

In an effort to hire more of those essential workers, the company is investing more than $10 million in a 100,000-square-foot technology and manufacturing center on 30 acres less than a mile away from its headquarters in Carpentersville.

Otto purchased Itasca, Ill.-based Dies Plus Inc. for an undisclosed amount in November and will relocate the tool and die company, which includes nine employees, to the new facility. Its metal stamping and machining operations will also be relocated there. Construction is expected to start in spring 2018 and will be completed in 2019.

The facility also marks Roeser's commitment to attracting young workers. Otto is partnering with the Schaumburg, Ill.-based Tooling and Manufacturing Association on an apprenticeship program. Five employees from Otto are already taking night classes through the association, but on-site classrooms at Otto's new facility will allow its second-shift workers to access training opportunities as well. Roeser said he hopes to have at least 10 on-site apprentices going through the program at a time.

"What motivated me to do this was my own future survival of manufacturing in America," he said.

Three years ago, Roeser received zero applications from the local high school for the work-study program at Otto. That didn't sit well with him.

"I went to talk to the high school principal and what he said to me was, 'It's the guidance counselors. They don't like manufacturing. They want everyone to go to college,'" he recalled.

In response, Roeser took the opportunity to speak directly to the nine guidance counselors at the high school.

To the counselors who had high school seniors of their own, Roeser asked, "What would you say to your son or daughter if they came to you and said, 'Mom, I don't want to go to college?'" One counselor responded with a firm, "Oh no. They're going to college."

But when Roeser asked the group what they say to other students at the school who tell them they don't want to go to college, the group went silent.

"I think what you do is you say, 'Are you sure?' And then when you say [that] to a 17-year-old kid, they think they've made a bad decision or at least they're insecure about it, so you want to change their mind," Roeser recalled saying to the counselors.

"And so, what you say is, 'What are you going to do? Work in a factory?'"

That scene in the guidance counselor's office was from last November. And while Roeser thought he might have convinced the group of administrators to direct more students down a conveyor belt that doesn't lead to a four-year degree, that spring he still received zero applications from the high school.

"It's a problem that we've created with false hope and expectations for our kids," he said of the college vs. the skilled trades debate. "These are very good jobs, and we should be celebrating it."