Greiner Packaging imports apprenticeship program to Pennsylvania

Pittston, Pa. — Austria's Greiner Packaging International GmbH has big goals for its apprenticeship program in its first U.S. factory: It hopes the costly effort will, in time, mirror its European factories and become a major source of new employees.

But first, executives at the Pennsylvania facility have had to work to overcome a big difference in attitudes between the United States and Europe.

"We actually had a job to try and sell it and convince people about what the program is," said David Kirkland, president of the U.S. operation, Greiner Packaging Corp., in Pittston and a native of Northern Ireland.

"That was the biggest difference from Europe," he said. "Apprenticeships are just common culture over there. Nobody's even questioning the scheme. Whereas over here we had to sell what we're trying to do."

Kirkland said the U.S. high school seniors they target, and their families, generally haven't been exposed to the kind of detailed, three-year apprenticeships that Greiner has, with tuition paid by the company.

People in the U.S. will ask, "What do you mean, 'You're going to pay for my education?'" he said.

"Because apprenticeships are not common, people didn't believe it," Kirkland said. "The culture and getting the public buy into it here was the biggest issue we had."

But he said Greiner feels the program is working in Pittston, and they've made progress in changing perceptions. Each year since the 2016 launch, recruiting gets easier as word gets out more widely to schools and the community, he said.

The parent company Greiner Packaging International, based in Kresmunster, Austria, has 22 factories worldwide, and it uses apprenticeships widely.

It made its foray into the U.S. packaging market by opening in Pittston in 2014. From the start, it's had plans for apprenticeships.

Kirkland is a particular fan, for personal reasons — he began with Greiner as an apprentice in Northern Ireland.

The 33-year-old completed his apprenticeship in mold making and rose through the company. In 2014, he moved to the U.S. to be chief operating officer of the Pittston facility and became its president in early 2017.

"I came out of an apprenticeship and I'm the president of this company, the U.S. business," he said. "That's not as uncommon as what you would think."

In time, he wants the apprenticeship program in Pittston to be the same sort of pipeline for new employees as it is in Europe.

One of its factories in the United Kingdom, for example, started an updated version of apprenticeships six years ago, what the company calls its Greiner Gold program. It has since been able to get about 10 percent of its workforce from it, all hired to handle new growth, Kirkland said.

In other Greiner factories, that figure is higher.

"In Europe it would be more heavily weighted, it could be upwards of 20 percent," he said. "We would have similar targets for this factory."

The U.S. program is in its early stages, though. It brought the 6-year-old Greiner Gold program to Pittston in 2016.

The extrusion, thermoforming and injection molding plant employs more than 100 (Kirkland declined to give a specific figure) and has four current apprentices, with two more starting in the fall. It received official certification from Pennsylvania last year.

Greiner's program, like other formally registered apprenticeships, take three years to complete and includes the company both paying the students to work and paying for a two-year college degree. In this case, that's in mechatronics from the local community college.

The company has benefited from the Pennsylvania government's plans for more apprenticeships.

Gov. Tom Wolf in April announced $7 million in state funding to help double the number of registered apprentices in the state by 2025. That included a $75,000 grant to Greiner, which Kirkland said is the only government support the company has received for the training effort.

As well, Wolf and other state politicians have visited the factory. With TV cameras in tow, the governor toured the plant last year to see the apprenticeship effort up close.

And the state government's deputy secretary for workforce development, Eileen Cipriani, visited Greiner earlier this year, asking a lot of detailed questions and attracting more local media.

One of the messages Kirkland has for political leaders is that finding technical staff is a key challenge globally for manufacturers.

"One of the biggest bottlenecks we came across for the last 20 or 30 years is having people ready to help grow the company, and the apprenticeship program is one of the big solutions for that," he said. "You're growing your own talent, you're preparing them in particular areas, which is important to your business. That really helps us on the technical side."

Greiner launched its redesigned apprenticeship effort globally six years ago, broadening it to give the apprentices more exposure to different parts of the company for a year before asking them to specialize, Kirkland said.

When Kirkland began his apprenticeship in 2003, he said it was under the more traditional model, where he specialized in mold making from the beginning.

"The business requirements are changing," Kirkland said. "Part of modern day industry is we are very diverse in what we do and the more cross skilled, cross trained people we have, absolutely the better."

He said the company also sees apprenticeships as part of its social responsibility.

"We know we wanted to do a rapid business growth here and we know we need people," he said. "The apprenticeship on one side is purely to support the company, and on the other side, it's probably just in our core ethics, a family owned company still, that being we want to give something back to the community, training and educating people as well."