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- Butler Tech Adult Education is enrolling for its Industrial Welding certification program
Financial aid is available for full-time programs
Butler Tech Adult Education has completed an expansion of its Industrial Welding program, adding more room and equipment dedicated to training students, in efforts to feed a pipeline for local employers that say they need more skilled trades.
The approximately $170,000 project converted existing building space. It grew the floor space for training certified welders from about 7,200-square-feet to about 9,500-square-feet, said Dennis Beam, associate director of business and industry technology for Butler Technology and Career Development Schools.
Currently, Butler Tech offers at the D. Russel Lee campus along Ohio 4 customized training courses for companies and a full-time evening program open to any adult students to obtain certification.
With the expansion, additional day and evening welding classes can be offered beginning in September, Beam said.
“With the economy rebounding, a slow but a steady trend, what’s happening is there are a number of workers that have been in the field for years. So there’s a natural attrition to that welding world and there’s not a natural supply, if you will,” Beam said.
Entry level pay for a welding job ranges from $12 to $16 an hour, according to Butler Tech’s website.
Job openings for welders, cutters, solderers and brazers are projected to grow 4.4 percent in Ohio from 2012 through 2022, with about 400 job openings statewide a year, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services’ Bureau of Labor Market Information. Most of the job opening projections are due to replacements needed for retirements and turnover, according to the state government statistics.
After completing the program himself, Stephen Reeves, 25, of Hamilton, now teaches welding classes at Butler Tech. He’s in the process of starting his own blacksmith and fabrication business, Reeves said. And at a time when other people his age might be trying to pay off their college loans, Reeves is buying a house.
“There’s a lot of younger guys who want to make a decent wage and they don’t want to sit behind a desk,” Reeves said. “They get into welding because the money is very good and there’s a demand for it.”
“It’s a great career and we sorely, sorely need skilled labor. College isn’t for everyone and it doesn’t mean you’re dumb. It just means you want to work with your hands,” he said.
“That’s the whole reason I got into welding.”
American Fan Co. of Fairfield, Hamilton Caster & Manufacturing Co., and West Chester Twp.-based AK Steel Holding Corp. are among the companies that have partnered with Butler Tech to train their work forces, Beam, of Butler Tech, said.
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 1943, which represents hourly manufacturing workers in Middletown, negotiates funds to pay for worker training such as welding, operations maintenance and other programs in its labor contracts with companies, said union President Neil Douglas.
“The reason it’s important is because we need to keep the skills set of the IAM Local 1943 hourly group up,” Douglas said.
Meanwhile, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College received in January this year a $50,000 grant from Middletown Community Foundation to open a welding laboratory at its Middletown branch campus. Information was not immediately available Tuesday about the status of the effort to open the facility.
Butler Tech is one of Ohio’s largest career-technical schools based on enrollment. It has four campuses in Fairfield Twp., Hamilton, Monroe, and Liberty Twp. with enrollment of approximately 3,200 full- and part-time students including associate programs offered at 10 local school districts. A West Chester Twp. bioscience campus will be the fifth campus.
The school district receives funding from tuition fees and taxpayers.
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