Spring 2006 Issue - Special Report
Manufacturing 2006
Ground Up
Posted: October 15, 2008
Imagine a ground-up opportunity for business managers and owners to help design a brand new work-oriented education facility and service institution. That opportunity is now available as the South Seattle Community College (SSCC) continues its initiative to design and build the new Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center in Georgetown.
SSCC already offers well-regarded training programs for welders, aircraft mechanics, heavy equipment truck drivers and mechanics. It is also home base for the Duwamish Apprentice and Education Training Center where 2,000 students per year learn professional skills as boiler makers, cement masons, electricians, glaziers, ironworkers and painters.
With the new Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center, SSCC President Jill Wakefield is building on the college’s existing strengths. Her goal is to add new services that directly benefit businesses and employees, including new customized training programs. She is also incorporating economic development services offered by organizations that specialize in helping industrial businesses.
She has the instructors, the professional service providers, a building site, conceptual drawings and about $10 million in state funding to build the new center. All that’s missing is you – if you are a business owner or manager who would like to help invent a local service center designed to meet your workforce needs. Businesses interested in SSCC customized programs, work-based English instruction for employees and other instructional programs should call Mike Porter at 206-459-3859
Start Here, Go Anywhere
By day, Pamela Ho works as a production control technician, developing and tracking work orders for Capital Industries, a metal fabricating company in Georgetown. At night, she takes community college classes, and next fall she plans to enroll in the engineering program at South Seattle Community College. After getting her community college degree she plans to transfer to the University of Washington to pursue a four-year degree in engineering and, maybe, a career in manufacturing.
The motto for SSCC is “Start Here, Go Anywhere” and every year and season, hundreds of students like Pamela Ho do. Some, like Pamela, are pursuing college programs that lead to four-year institutions and advanced degrees. Others are in two-year and other near-term programs aimed at career paths in technical fields.
The college’s success in helping such students is the root of the new Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center that is under development at the college’s Duwamish campus. The idea is to build on the good things the college does and make them better by forging stronger ties with the neighboring business community and creating new services desired by businesses, employees and students.
And at SSCC, there is never a shortage of good students, teachers and businesses that are striving to accomplish great things.
A RUNNING START
Souphy Phousouvanh started at SSCC in 1998 while he was still a senior at Rainier Beach High School. Phousouvanh began earning college credits while still in high school through the “Running Start” program, taking a class in the SSCC automotive program. After high school, he enrolled in the SSCC Automotive Collision program. With his “running start” he was able to jump ahead of the introduction classes and started learning to weld immediately.
Just before Souphy’s graduation in 2001, SSCC instructor Steve Ford helped him get a job as a painter’s assistant at Huling Brothers Auto Body Shop in West Seattle. “It wasn’t bad.” Souphy said, “I went from a minimum wage job at Hollywood Video to double the wage plus benefits.” Now a full-time Technician, Souphy averaged over $24 per hour in wage and commissions in 2005.
Souphy’s boss at Huling, Lloyd Light, gives guest lectures in at SSCC a couple of times a year. His goal is to give the students insight into the difference between the classroom and the work place. As a former vocational teacher, Light likes working with young people. “Today’s technicians are much smarter,” he said. “They have better training and background in computers then even a decade ago,” Light reports.
A JOB WITH A FUTURE
Ranbir Singh came to SSCC through a customized program to teach basic manufacturing skills. The program was developed by SSCC instructors for the Seattle Jobs Initiative, a program serving people with low incomes who want to get ahead, like Singh. He came to the US from India in 1999. After working in a restaurant for four years, Singh wanted to get back to his roots. In India, his family had a business that manufactured knitting machines. He signed up for the SJI manufacturing program offered at SSCC. “The metal industry was in my blood,” says Singh, “I had to get back to that. I needed a job with a future.”
The three month program enabled Singh to get an entry- level job as a helper at Alaskan Copper Works, a metal fabricating firm in Seattle. Singh started out earning less than he did at the restaurant, but he said he knows he has a chance to better establish himself in the US while he progresses toward a good journeyman wage. “With my training from SSCC, I can work anywhere in the world.”
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Singh’s boss at Alaskan Copper Works is Charlie Herberg, the welding superintendent. Herberg graduated from a community college in 1973. Today he serves on the SSCC Advisory Committee for the welding program. The committee meets three to four times a year to help keep instructors up on industry trends. “Our job is to let the college know what we’re doing in today’s workplace, what processes we use and what equipment we’re relying on,” Herberg says. Shop tours of Alaskan’s 6th Ave S facilities are part of the relationship, as well. Herberg says it only makes sense to keep up close ties with the instructors. “We’re always looking for welders. Those guys know our shop and know which students to direct our way.”
TAKING STOCK
So, let’s take stock. SSCC has a good, creative faculty capable of adapting to custom needs and responding to eager students. The student body is full of energetic, ambitious students of the type that have moved the wheels of commerce since time immemorial. Business people are involved with the college as advisers and guest speakers because it’s a “good” thing to do. It’s a smart one, too, because they meet influential instructors and ambitious people on the cusp of entering the workforce.
And instead of resting on its laurels, the college is attempting to get better at what it does through the establishment of the Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center (PSIEC).
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE THE COLLEGE TO DO?
The PSIEC will provide replacement buildings for some existing apprenticeship programs and it will eventually include a new building at the old Hat and Boots site off of East Marginal Way. Construction for phase one will get underway this summer.
SSCC President Jill Wakefield is working with an advisory committee to plan what the PSIEC should be. They see it as a one-stop center where local businesses can get connected with specialized training programs for their workers. They see it as a place where businesses can receive direct help and economic services. President Wakefield wants more advice from the business community before she firms up the plans. “We would like to use the PSIEC as an opportunity to build up our relationship with the local business community,” she says.
If you would like to help, contact the Manufacturing Industrial Council of Seattle at 206-762-2470. The college is one of our best community resources and it wants business input to learn how it can become an even better one.
New Business Services Through SSCC
With its growing partnerships to support the Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center, SSCC is gaining new partners who can help businesses. Two of the partners are Washington Manufacturing Services and Evergreen Community Development.
WASHINGTON MANUFACTURING SERVICES
The only goal for this non-profit group is to help Washington manufacturers become more competitive. Since its inception in 1997, WMS has served 1,000 manufacturers around the state.
Washington Manufacturing Services (WMS) can link local companies with expertise and hard-to-access national resources through its affiliation with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership,
A recent beneficiary was North Star Ice Equipment, a 58-year-old company in Seattle that manufactures flake ice makers and ice conveying systems. North Star wanted to export component parts to customers in the European Union, but was worried about added costs of possible EU certification requirements. Consultants offered to get the answers for North Star for fees of around $10,000. WMS was able to find a specialized office in the U.S. Department of Commerce that was able to provide all the information that North Star needed. The commerce department only charged North Star for document copying costs. North Star president, Alan H. Smyth, offers the following testimonial: “WMS saved us time and money by providing accurate trade resources. We didn’t need to spend money on costly trade certifications, thanks to WMS findings” You can learn more at the WMS website, www.wamf.org.
EVERGREEN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Founded in 1980 Evergreen Community Development (ECD) is a non-profit organization that has helped 1,300 small businesses to receive $550 million in long term, fixed rate loans, resulting in the addition of 13,000 jobs and retention of 15,000 more. ECD is a Certified Development Company regulated by the U.S. Small Business Administration and it is the largest lender of it type in the Pacific Northwest.
Evergreen’s loans can be used for land or building purchases, construction or remodeling costs, equipment purchases and leasehold improvements. Loans are available to small businesses with net worth of less than $7,500,000 and net earnings of less than $2,500,000 (after taxes) on average for the last two years. Projects must create or retain employment or provide other benefits to its community.
Moeller Design and Development used Evergreen to help secure financing for its 30,000 square foot building on South Industrial Way in the Duwamish business area. Terms of the loan allowed Moeller to save money on the down payment, freeing up funds for working capital and moving costs.
For more information about ECD, call 206-622-3731 or visit the EDC web site at www.ecda.com.
