{"id":372,"date":"2022-06-24T09:54:55","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T14:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/?p=372"},"modified":"2022-06-24T09:54:55","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T14:54:55","slug":"2017-listening-session-recap-trades-manufacturing-and-workforce-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/2022\/06\/24\/2017-listening-session-recap-trades-manufacturing-and-workforce-development\/","title":{"rendered":"2017 Listening Session Recap \u2014 Trades, Manufacturing and Workforce Development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-63 img-fluid\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/86\/2021\/12\/StratPlanBanner_675x100_2.jpg\" alt=\"Strategic Plan Banner\" width=\"657\" height=\"100\" data-bp=\"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/86\/2021\/12\/StratPlanBanner_675x100_2.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Facilitator: David Towley, assistant professor, BSU School of Technology, Art &amp; Design<br>\n<\/strong><strong>Location: Northwest Technical College<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>TOPIC: <\/strong>Employers in building trades seek prospects with strong &ldquo;soft skills&rdquo;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We look for people with a good work ethic, which is hard to train for. (Jamie Quello, Jamie Quello, Peterson Sheet Metal)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Students who work for a firm while attending NTC don&rsquo;t necessarily made good permanent employees because they lack communication ability and work ethic. (Brian Kuhrke, Todavich Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Many NTC graduates and other new employees demonstrate a lack of awareness of what the job required. They want to communicate via phone and use a computer, &ldquo;but don&rsquo;t know how to show up at 8 o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo; (Brian Kurhke, Todavich Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>We recognize that NTC has the same challenge &ndash; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how you fix that.&rdquo; (Sam Mason, manager, Beltrami Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>&ldquo;They need to be able to stay on task all day not find 100 reasons why they need to leave.&rdquo; (Sam Mason, Beltrami Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>New employees have difficulty following directions. They expect that they &ldquo;get a vote, not just input.&rdquo; They need to understand that they are welcome to share ideas &ndash; &ldquo;but don&rsquo;t necessarily expect them all to be implemented&hellip; You have fewer good people who are willing to learn. Maybe that it&rsquo;s everybody needs to be an individual.&rdquo; (Sam Mason, Beltrami Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Lack of regimentation and structure in college sets poor example for workplace. Would prefer if students had more or less a full day of classes. What happens is that they have a class that starts at 10, &ldquo;and they&rsquo;ve gotten slack.&rdquo; (Brian Kurhke, Todavich Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Believe it would be best to hire people while they&rsquo;re still in high school &ldquo;so we can teach them how to work and what&rsquo;s expected&hellip; It&rsquo;s expensive when you do that.&rdquo; (Brian Kurhke, Todavich Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not the school&rsquo;s responsibility to teach soft skills&hellip; It&rsquo;s important for us as managers to help people outside of college. It&rsquo;s a learned behavior.&rdquo; (Trisha Newland, Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials Materials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Quality of NTC graduates is more uneven than it once was &ndash; &ldquo;Your top students are just incredible, but your worst students are horrible.&rdquo; (Sam Mason, Beltrami Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>TOPIC: <\/strong>Strong core skills in a trade area are more important and valuable than more specialized knowledge<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&ldquo;I need for them to know how to hook up a three-way (switch? outlet?) before they install a solar system.&rdquo; (Brian Kurhke, Todavich Electric)<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>TOPIC: <\/strong>Specific skill areas needed and\/or hired<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Diesel automotive mechanics are needed by construction companies in the area. It&rsquo;s not hard to fill office positions. 70 percent of hires are employee referrals, but not the case with diesel mechanics. (Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Shortage of candidates for CDL-required jobs (commercial driver&rsquo;s license). (Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials, and Tim Qualley, business services specialist, Minnesota Department of Employment &amp; Economic Development (DEED), Bemidji)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Successful hiring BSU grads for project management. (Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Need for nursing graduates. Hospitals have openings they can&rsquo;t fill &ndash; and even harder for nursing homes because they can&rsquo;t pay as much &ndash; &ldquo;They&rsquo;re scrambling to get anybody.&rdquo; (Tim Qualley, DEED)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>There&rsquo;s a need for more tradespeople &ndash; carpenters, that kind of stuff. &ldquo;Any of the building trades are really scraping for people. A lot of baby boomers are starting to retire, and they&rsquo;re not getting people for those jobs.&rdquo; (Tim Qualley, DEED)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Also demand for higher-tech jobs that require basic computer skills but can train for higher-level skills. (Tim Qualley, DEED)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>When NTC had a carpentry program, graduates knew carpentry was what they wanted to do. Now start with 24 new employees &ldquo;and end up with six.&rdquo; (Mike Carom, carpenters union, Bemidji)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In carpentry union&rsquo;s apprenticeship program, which runs for 2-3 years, there is a code of ethics class that covers such things as how to dress for a job site, proper language &ndash; &ldquo;even down to body odors that offend people next to you.&rdquo; (Mike Carom, carpenters union)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Students have more interest when there&rsquo;s a value-added outcome such as a specific certification card &ndash; &ldquo;like an OSHA card.&rdquo; (Mike Carom, carpenters union)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Augmented reality\/virtual reality not yet big in the Bemidji region. (Howie Zetah, Zetah Construction Co., Bemidji)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A son is in the NTC electrical construction program and doing well &ndash; &ldquo;He said it&rsquo;s pretty good. For him, that&rsquo;s saying you&rsquo;re great.&rdquo; The son is married with child and has already worked in construction for three years. &ldquo;He appreciates the opportunity of getting an electrician&rsquo;s license to move him out of being that guy in the trench with a shovel.&rdquo; (Sam Mason, Beltrami Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>TOPIC: <\/strong>Students would benefit from having a more realistic idea of job market before they graduate<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Recommend a course that prepares them for reality of job market, regional wage levels &ndash; &ldquo;A lot of the kids coming out of college expect seventy grand to start. That&rsquo;s more like Minneapolis wages&hellip; We hire about 150 people a year, and every one who sits across the desk from me always has an expectation that&rsquo;s not realistic.&rdquo; (Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Also could use better interviewing skills and understanding of what&rsquo;s needed to find jobs and apply. (Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Need to highlight for students that quality of life and more affordable housing are advantages of living in the Bemidji area. (Howie Zetah)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>TOPIC: <\/strong>Ideas for improving quality of graduates and preparedness to be successful employees<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&ldquo;Can we look at better recruitment (by NTC), reaching out to the high schools and getting kids into the industry and see if we can get them excited&hellip; We&rsquo;ve got to be realistic about pay&hellip; To find those kids is hard, but I think if NTC is really digging deep and sending people out to talk to kids &ndash; not just about carpentry but about all of the programs&hellip; &nbsp;You&rsquo;ve got to get the kids in here.&rdquo; (Howie Zetah)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>&ldquo;A lot of the kids who get into carpentry are going to turn into project managers and start their own businesses. You never know where it&rsquo;s going to take you.&rdquo; (Howie Zetah)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>&ldquo;As a faculty person, I could get into the classroom, and maybe I&rsquo;d be there for a whole day talking about all the programs the college offers. A recruiter can&rsquo;t get into the classroom.&rdquo; (Paul Nelson, NTC faculty, high-performance engine machining)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>If we could get into shop classes once or twice a year and explain that trades are a good thing &ndash; &ldquo;you can earn a good living.&rdquo; (Brian Kurhke, Todavich Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Consider asking recent grads who have a few years of success in the field to participate in recruitment. (Sam Mason, Beltrami Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Invite employers to meet with students on the last day of class &ldquo;rather than getting lost in a big job fair.&rdquo; (Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>CTC in Staples does mock interviews for students &ndash; &ldquo;they&rsquo;ve had a lot of success with that.&rdquo; (Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Provide information about faculty directly to businesses so they can make a direct connection with them. (Trisha Newland, Knife River Materials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Would be beneficial to offer course in family budgeting and bookkeeping &ndash; &ldquo;I make X dollars; that gives me X dollars a month.&rdquo; (Sam Mason, Beltrami Electric)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In seasonal trade fields, graduates need to understand that they might not be employed full-time year-round. (Jamie Quello, Peterson Sheet Metal)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Important for NTC to have representatives, including with the NTC Foundation, who are out in the community and can make connections with business people. (Howie Zetah)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facilitator: David Towley, assistant professor, BSU School of Technology, Art &amp; Design Location: Northwest Technical College TOPIC: Employers in building trades seek prospects with strong &ldquo;soft skills&rdquo; We look for people with a good work ethic, which is hard to train for. (Jamie Quello, Jamie Quello, Peterson Sheet Metal) Students who work for a firm [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/offices\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}