The Niles Star

Welding training customized for needed job skills

Even in this challenging job market, Quen Potts, Niles office branch manager at Williamson Employment Services, was having difficulty finding qualified candidates to fill aluminum MIG welding positions for her client, Modineer, the largest manufacturing employer in Niles with nearly 500 employees.

Aluminum MIG welding is a highly skilled process. Modineer had been seeking candidates in Michigan and Indiana, but was unable to find welders who could pass their customer’s certification requirements.

Potts contacted fellow chamber member Barbara Craig, executive dean of Lake Michigan College’s (LMC) Bertrand Crossing Campus in Niles, to brainstorm ideas. Potts and Craig held a job fair at the Bertrand Crossing Campus, but the event produced only a few leads. However, it led to the idea of creating the needed skilled workforce through customized training. But time was of the essence.

Potts had recently learned about advanced manufacturing training provided at LMC’s M-TEC facility in Benton Harbor. She proposed the idea of utilizing LMC to train welding applicants to meet her client’s needs. Debbie Gillespie, an LMC training coordinator, contacted LMC welding instructors John and Heidi Closson, and within two days, a welding training program was in the works.

Steve Blum, Modineer Corporate director of human resources, and Tom Kruse, senior welding engineer at Modineer, worked with LMC’s Russ Philip, a learning solutions developer, to design the welding training with the Clossons.

After two weeks of specific aluminum MIG welding and safety training, 15 welding students demonstrated their newly learned skills through practical and written tests, and were offered employment opportunities at Modineer.

“When area businesses approach us for training assistance, we understand how important the quality of the training is, as well as how critical a responsive turnaround time is,” Craig said. “The success of our local economy is dependent upon the access our businesses have to a skilled workforce.”

Dallas Dreher, Modineer’s human resources and safety coordinator, said, “We would do this again. It was a positive experience. The Clossons were great.”  Dreher said that Blum helped with the classes and the screenings of candidates, while Kruse administered the welding testing in conjunction with the LMC instructors.

Modineer offered to pay the trainees $10 an hour for the 40-hour course if they passed the company’s test and accepted a job offer, so it was ultimately a two-week job interview. The recent hires are now making $13.13 an hour and working overtime. According to John Closson, the students came from throughout southwestern Michigan and Kalamazoo, and were already skilled welders from past M-TEC welding academies and other positions.

Closson described the relationship between LMC, Modineer, and Williamson Employment Services as, “A great partnership that resulted from out-of-the-box thinking. Reaching 100 percent job placement as a result of this recent welding training is great because we are getting people jobs in a jobless economy.”

Potts said she has been educating other clients about the process of designing custom training for companies, and said, “Williamson Employment Services is keeping the window open with Modineer about future training.”