The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
‘IMMEDIATE TRACTION’
Lake Shore Compact launches partnership with CRT for hands-on experience
“The creation of our preapprenticeship program is an excellent way to ensure our students are being trained with skills today for the jobs of tomorrow.” — Compact director Joseph Glavan
High school career tech program collaborative Lake Shore Compact has kicked off a partnership with Component Repair Technologies, Inc. as part of the advanced manufacturing program for high school juniors and seniors.
Lake Shore Compact offers a variety of career tech programs to Mentor, Euclid and Wickliffe students who are seeking
hands-on experience and possible certifications in their fields of interest.
CRT in Mentor specializes in gas turbine engine repair and inspection for aerospace, marine and manufacturing industries. The company will be offering its interns an opportunity to learn about this type of precision machining.
Compact director Joseph Glavan said that through its partnership with CRT, Mentor Schools has recently been recognized by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services as a pre-apprenticeship program for machinists.
“The creation of our pre-apprenticeship program is an excellent way to ensure our students are being trained with skills today for the jobs of tomorrow,” he said.
“Students who meet our pre-apprenticeship program requirements will earn a state of Ohio Apprenticeship Council recognized Pre-Apprenticeship Program Certificate of Completion, earn substantial articulated credit toward an apprenticeship, and earn articulated college credit with one of our many college partners which include Lakeland, Tri-C, Kent State University, and the University of Akron,” he added.
The first three students to begin their pre-apprenticeship with CRT — two juniors and a senior from Mentor High — started their training in early February.
Matt Kulbis, Lake Shore Compact’s program instructor for advanced manufacturing, said he was proud to now have CRT as one of the partners for the program and “thrilled” that they were able to offer three students internships this year.
“While interning at CRT, students will have the opportunity to connect precision machining skills with the industries that CRT serves,” Kulbis said. “Because CRT has such a vast offering of manufacturing processes outside of machining, these interns will be able to see first hand how a multitude of operations can be combined to complete a finished product.
“They can see exactly how the machining work they do affects other departments’ tasks and vice versa.”
CRT Human Resource Manager John Gallagher said they are excited to partner with Mentor Schools and Lake Shore Compact.
“The apprenticeship model is a career pathway that has been alive and thriving in many areas of the world but has lost momentum in the U.S. over the last few decades,” Gallagher said. “Many across the country and throughout Ohio like CRT, Lake Shore Compact and AWT (Alliance for Working Together) have pushed to bring this model back.
“An apprenticeship combines classroom training, lab work and real life application in a structured format where the student can immediately apply what they are learning.”
Gallagher said most full apprenticeships take about four years to complete, but if students stick with the program through Lake Shore Compact and CRT they will graduate with over a year already under their belt.
He explained that their current three interns divide up their time between Mentor High, a machining lab at Lakeland Community College to learn the basics, and onsite training at CRT.
“Three days per week the interns will come to CRT where our machine trainer continues their instruction on live machines and scrap parts where they gain practical application of the skills they’ve obtained,” Gallagher said.
He added that one of the most exciting aspects of this partnership is how it benefits the community overall.
“For the student, they are gaining immediate traction in a high demand, high skill, high paying field,” Gallagher said. “For the school, this is not only a graduation pathway but the student is simultaneously gaining industry based credentials and articulated college credit.
“For the employer, we’re able to hone the skilled workforce of tomorrow,” he added. “For the community we’re able to graduate our students and place them in to high paying careers right down the road from their school.”