Pondering the potential of exposure to the skilled trades

Williamston, Mich. — Would I still be a journalist if I had been more exposed to the skilled trades growing up? That question popped into my head a few weeks ago during a visit to Bekum America Corp., the U.S. operation of German extrusion blow molding machinery maker Bekum Maschinenfabriken GmbH.

Apprentices at the North American headquarters in Williamston, Mich., spend about four years in a structured, on-the-job training program that's based on a German-style apprenticeship.

I was told by Patrick Smith, Bekum's apprentice trainer and a former toolmaker for General Motors Co., that the German model is more heavily focused on hand skills and hand tools.

"Files … in my apprenticeship were for deburring or putting the chamfer on a part," Smith said. "Over here, you're actually making parts flat, square — 90 degrees totally from a file."

The 8,000-hour apprenticeship program includes five areas of study: machinist, machine builder, industrial electrician, steel fabricator/welder and, the newest addition, mechatronics. Students gain skills and experience working side-by-side Bekum's veteran employees and earn about 59 credit hours at Lansing Community College. Bekum covers the tuition and material expenses, but the students have to maintain a 3.0 grade point average.

Apprentices spend their first nine to 12 months in the company's apprentice training center, essentially a learning incubator tucked away in a quiet corner of the manufacturing floor. The students here use German apprenticeship books that have been translated into English. The idea is to make sure the students head to the manufacturing floor with the same basic level of knowledge and skills required.

"I want them to be successful on all assignments, so this isn't something that you can go into cold turkey," Smith told me. "You have to practice. It takes a lot of practice."

Average starting pay for the students is around $10.65 an hour. After every 1,000 hours or six months, assuming they're meeting all the criteria of the program, they'll get a pay increase. Upon completion, apprentices are given a journeyman certificate. They're not guaranteed a full-time spot at Bekum, but the door for job prospects at other companies opens wider.

I enjoyed science and math classes as a kid. The controlled experiments we did outside of reading clunky classroom textbooks were challenging, but fun. I remember catching one-of-a-kind snowflakes on black construction paper, launching plastic soda bottle rockets, designing and dropping parachute-type contraptions that would keep our fragile egg passengers from spilling their yellow-yoke guts, and chemistry lab experiments reminiscent of my childhood mud-pie creations.

I think following the journalism career path was probably inevitable for me — as it seems for most aspiring writers and language lovers with "Harriet the Spy" levels of curiosity — but what about many of my millennial peers? I can certainly recall several people during my senior year of high school, freshman year of college, and even now as we tip-toe into our thirties, who have little to no idea what sort of field they should be in.

Would some of them be more fulfilled at their jobs had they chosen to pursue the skilled trades in lieu of college? Perhaps, but I don't think enough of us were exposed to those opportunities or possibilities.

I'm reminded of one of the apprentices I spoke with during my visit to Bekum America: Ashley Carr, a mechatronics apprentice who recently finished her first year in the program. She's the only female apprentice at Bekum, but I'll save that topic for another In Motion blog post.

Carr's father was a toolmaker at Ford Motor Co. who had completed an apprenticeship, and she had visited manufacturing plants previously, usually during events like Manufacturing Day. She had exposure to the skilled trades at school and at home.

"I definitely think a lot of people are under the impression that everything we do here is super complicated, and you'll never be able to understand how it works," the 19-year-old told me. "But I also think it's just we don't advertise it as much."

Growing up, she recalled hearing the repetition of "you've gotta go to college, you've gotta go to college, you've gotta go to college," like a talking bird.

"But there are other options, like the apprenticeship programs and stuff like that," she said. "I feel like the biggest barriers are just knowing about it."