CHAPTER 14

Northern Tier Industry and Education Consortium

A Partnership for “First Chance” Programs

Pete Butler

In late 1992, when I was the site training and development manager at Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) Mehoopany, Pennsylvania, plant, I found out about a youth apprenticeship program that had been piloted in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Seeing the obvious workforce development potential, I made a business case to P&G management for applying the program to the Northern Tier region and P&G’s Mehoopany plant, its largest worldwide facility with over 100 acres under one roof and over 3,000 employees.

Prior to this time, the average hiring age at the Mehoopany plant was 30 years old. Knowing that the plant invested about $100,000 per technician over their first 10 years of employment, earlier career starts (by hiring through an apprenticeship program) could add over 10 years to an employee’s career, reduce turnover by up to 30%, and save up to $30,000 per employee. Coupled with lower initial training costs (training wages vs full salary and benefits), the savings potential grew to almost $50,000 per employee hired through the program. This created some excitement and strong support to move forward with the pilot.

In early 1993, a meeting was convened with six area school superintendents and representatives from several manufacturing companies to explore school-to-work (STW) funding. This group became the Northern Tier Industry and Education Consortium (NTIEC). At that first meeting, companies made the case for schools working closely with employers to meet future workforce needs. Richard Serfass, superintendent of Elk Lake Public Schools, clearly a thought leader and senior member of the superintendents’ group, advocated for partnering with employers to benefit students and also help companies be more successful. The NTIEC decided to apply for a STW grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and moved forward with planning.

The goal in the first year was to place 10 youth apprentices with Northern Tier manufacturers in the fall. This was accomplished, and then 30 apprentices were placed in year 2. In year 3, the program increased to over 60 apprentices. The NTIEC Youth Apprenticeship Program (YAP) continued to grow, with well over a hundred students placed each year thereafter.

Schools districts with good business sense quickly see the value of YAP. NTIEC charges $1,000 per apprentice for the first 10 students, $500 per apprentice for the next five students, and then $250 for each additional apprentice. Thus, a district with 25 students in YAP would pay $15,000 per year. Additionally, the students benefit from work-based learning on state-of-the-art equipment with mentors in their field while addressing real-world problems. In comparison, 25 students in traditional co-op programs would cost the district about $100,000 per year for teachers’ salaries and benefits. The cost for 25 vocational and technical students is even higher when you consider that districts need to provide building facilities, equipment, and instructors. In YAP, employers have stepped up to provide a paid, work-based learning experience while providing trainers, program coordinators, and mentors for each student at no cost to the districts.

Career Education Programs

The NTIEC currently provides a number of career education programs with two educational coordinators who plan and deliver joint initiatives with employers and schools. Programs serve both students and educators (Exhibits 14-1 and 14-2). Teachers and principals can earn in-service credit by spending a day in a workplace or attending a panel session at their schools. Both types of experiences allow educators to learn more about the expectations for entry into a variety of careers and what expectations are on a day-to-day basis. After completing the Educator in the Workplace program, many teachers redesign their curriculum to include more hands-on experiences that mimic activities in the workplace.

The NTIEC supports half a dozen youth programs. Although the formats vary, the common objective of the youth programs is to place students face-to-face with employers to discuss career opportunities and educational requirements for success. One example is the Vehicular Career Day, in which about 25 people who work with vehicles bring the vehicles and equipment to the school and set up stations in the parking lot. They include linemen, drill rig operators, grader operators, state policemen, home health care workers, and many more. Small cohorts of students rotate through the stations to meet the workers. The excitement of students is palpable as they get to meet these workers face-to-face and start to consider careers of which they had no prior knowledge. Although many of the youth programs last for a day or less, NTIEC also supports a youth apprenticeship program that can last up to 2 years. In the 2012–2013 school year, NTIEC provided a variety of program opportunities for over 3,000 Northern Tier students to learn about a wide variety of local careers.

Exhibit 14-1.   Opportunities for educators.

After 20 years, NTIEC is still developing new efforts. Based on recent interest by manufacturers in YAP, we are partnering with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center (NEPIRC) under contract to develop and deliver YAPs for manufacturers. We are working on manufacturing career events that are designed to inform youngsters about local career opportunities in manufacturing. We are also partnering with NEPIRC’s executive director, Eric Esoda, on a grant to place experienced career coaches from the private sector in area schools. Their focus would be exclusively on careers, and on presenting a model for making informed career choices.

The tremendous progress in career education would not have been possible without the strong partnership with our Career and Technology Center (CTC). The Susquehanna County CTC’s director, Dr. Alice Davis, has been a tireless supporter and a board member since NTIEC was founded in 1993. By capitalizing on busing from the eight sending schools, the CTC has partnered with NTIEC on four or more career events per year.

Exhibit 14-2.   Programs for youths.

Finally, professional credentials and integrated school and workplace learning plans are long-term goals for the program, but we currently do not have resources to adequately address these opportunities. One promising effort currently underway with leadership from Bill desRosiers, community affairs coordinator for Cabot Oil and Gas, will provide a seamless pathway for youngsters into the natural gas industry, which is booming in the Marcellus shale regions of Pennsylvania. It begins with early career awareness, job shadowing, college credits in high school, an associate’s degree program at Lackawanna College, and employment with Cabot or its affiliates. NTIEC and Cabot hope to see this model replicated for other sectors in the future.

Youth Apprenticeship Program

As noted earlier, the NTIEC was created to support the YAP, which remains the consortium’s flagship program. Apprentices are placed with employers for 1 or 2 days per week. In most cases, one of the days is a normally scheduled school day and the second day may be on the weekend. Some students also participate in a summer YAP on a full-time basis. Apprenticeships can last up to 2 years in high school.

Typically, potential apprentices are identified by their high school’s guidance counselors. The counselors send student information to the NTIEC’s educational coordinators. The NTIEC staff visits the schools to discuss opportunities with interested students. The coordinators work with employers to match students with available positions. YAP participants are high school juniors and seniors and even some college students who have been in the program since high school. The program has participants from the entire academic spectrum: top-of-the-class college-bound students as well as students who plan to enter the workplace after high school. All seem to benefit from the work-based learning experience and find that their academic work has new relevance.

Apprentices are hired through each company’s normal hiring process, which can include interviews, employment tests, and drug tests. Students are helped with résumé writing and interviewing skills, and are schooled in workplace ethics and norms prior to starting. At the beginning of the apprenticeship, NTIEC staff members work with employers to develop a training plan and periodically visit apprentices in the workplace to ensure a quality experience.

Students want to participate in the YAP for a variety of reasons. It is not just great exposure to a career and possibly a direct pipeline to a full-time job; it is also a paying job. Students are paid at normal entry-level rates* per employer norms. In addition, most high schools allow students to earn one credit for participation, and employers grade the students’ workplace performance. NTIEC and employers provide framed certificates for successful completion of the YAP program. Exemplary performers are selected for added recognition, including certificates and monetary awards of $100. These student awards are presented during award ceremonies at the end of the school year. Still, the students seem to recognize that the greatest value is the opportunity to gain meaningful work experience in their field of interest, which will make their résumé stand out when they apply for jobs after graduation.

Impact of NTIEC Programs

Since 1993, NTIEC has served nearly 29,000 youths. This includes 2,000 youth apprentices, 12,000 students through the career education programs, and 15,000 through the Rachel’s Challenge program. The NTIEC’s business–education partnership remains successful because of the benefits for youths, for businesses, and the community.

Benefits for YAP Participants

Marleen Butler, an NTIEC educational coordinator for 14 years, reports that YAP transforms high school students into mature young adults. There are many examples of students who were doing poorly in school, perhaps due to boredom, difficult family situations, peer pressure, and other personal challenges. The YAP’s combination of strong adult workplace mentoring, new and interesting situations, and a clear challenge allow students to take that first step toward a career. Butler believes that the transformation and growth in students is largely due to “total immersion” in the adult world. Students are challenged to accept responsibility and add value to the company, and most rise to the occasion. The change is obvious. It is heartwarming to hear parents’ comments after students have been in the program for a few months. They are astounded by the rapid growth and maturity of their sons and daughters.

Parents also win as their children can start post-secondary education with a career focus. This translates into fewer false starts—and hopefully fewer tuition bills—as compared with students who enter college without a focus and take additional courses as they try to decide on a major. Students who go directly into the workforce after high school are able to become self-supporting faster, and parents again benefit as their children avoid the “homing pigeon” trap.

Benefits for Employers

Why do employers continue to participate in the NTIEC career education programs, particularly making the investment in apprentices? For starters, companies get the pick of the crop for future employees. The youth apprenticeship creates a tremendous loyalty that, if students are hired into full-time positions, translates into reduced turnover. Employers save on initial training costs, and, when hiring for full-time positions, have a skilled individual from the outset. Reductions in costly quality or production losses can be a huge payoff for employers as well. While the NTIEC has no formal monitoring system in place, employers continue to participate and are eager to hire youths as apprentices and hire apprentices as full-time employees.

Experiences of Individual Employers

Although many employers participate in the NTIEC, a few have made a deep investment in the YAP program. Two of these are Procter & Gamble and Tyler Memorial Hospital.

Procter & Gamble’s Mehoopany Plant. Melissa Mapes, the YAP leader at the P&G Mehoopany, Pennsylvania, plant, reports that the YAP is their preferred method of hiring, and they continue to host 10 and 20 apprentices per year. Prior to YAP, this P&G plant never hired 18- to 20-year-olds. The average age of a new employee was 30. To date, the Mehoopany plant employs over 80 alumni of YAP, with career training and development savings of $4 million. Savings from higher starting skills are likely much higher (reduced equipment downtime, fewer quality control incidents, etc.).

Given these benefits, P&G’s Mehoopany plant manager has challenged the plant’s human resources staff to grow the program to accommodate more than 30 apprentices per year. The employees hired through YAP have proven to be the best new hires in the plant’s history, and have enjoyed accelerated skill development and promotions when compared to their non-YAP peers.

Tyler Memorial Hospital. Tyler Memorial Hospital in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, also found YAP is a great pipeline for registered nursing staff. After years of challenging recruiting efforts, Gayle Gipson, training and development manager, concluded that skilled youths from the rural community of Wyoming County would be more inclined to live and work there than would potential employees from outside the area. The hospital worked with NTIEC to place high school apprentices at the hospital. Many of these students went on to earn degrees at local colleges, to earn their registered nurse licenses, and to return to work for Tyler. Tyler also supports the regional Health Care Career Day, with eight to ten professionals from a variety of specialties. Tyler Memorial Hospital’s revised recruiting strategy is a great example of sustained partnering between educators and employers to solving a critical community employment need.

Benefits to the Community

Prior to the NTIEC’s career education programs, most of the best and brightest students left the Northern Tier after high school. It was hard for them to see any local opportunities. Since 1992, the perception of career opportunities within the region has improved. More and more young people are opting to stay. In addition to many fine smaller companies, global enterprises such as P&G, Cargill, Siemens, Chesapeake Energy, Cabot Oil and Gas, and Williams Pipeline are now better able to meet their workforce needs. After many years of poor economic prospects after the collapse of the coal industry, YAP has become a key contributor to an upward spiral of success for northeastern Pennsylvania. The NTIEC most recently has partnered with the rapidly developing natural gas industry in the region to help develop their future workforce. Bill desRosiers, Cabot Oil and Gas Company’s community affairs manager, worked with NTIEC to develop and deliver a “Careers In Energy” program that has been successfully piloted with hundreds of area students. We are currently rolling out this program to several school districts. The program gives students first-hand exposure to professionals in the nuclear, electric utilities, solar, wind, and oil sectors, in addition to the natural gas sector.

Sustaining the NTIEC’s Career Education Programs

The NTIEC has been around for 20 years. What makes the consortium successful? What resources sustain the workforce development initiative?

Factors That Contribute to Success

Determined, passionate, visionary leadership is needed to sustain local progress over time in spite of serious shortfalls in state and federal funding. There is little constancy of purpose at the state or federal level. Programs like school-to-work just start to get some traction and then are abandoned for the next new program. When state administrations change, so do priorities, and promising initiatives are dropped. Without perseverance by local leaders, most school-to-work transition programs are abandoned. NTIEC has been able to piece together modest local support from schools, employers, and foundations over the years, with budgets that range from $150,000 to $200,000 per year to serve five Northern Tier counties with one full-time and three part-time employees. NTIEC is extremely fortunate to have Don Abplanalp, a 30-year veteran small business owner, who brings employers and schools together in our western counties, and Marleen Butler, a workforce development specialist, with over 25 years’ experience in work-based learning, who brings employers and schools together in our eastern counties.

Over the years, NTIEC’s staff has come from all sectors and has included retired school superintendents, retired business executives, workforce development specialists, and retired vocational educators. The staff members have a passion for the work and, because many of them are retired or near retirement, they are not driven by financial needs. The critical abilities are driving results; connecting the dots for educators, business leaders, students, and parents; building a positive image for the programs; and celebrating success at every opportunity.

Staff members bring their experience and passion to coordinating joint efforts between schools and employers in the NTIEC. This is not unique to the Northern Tier; wherever we see success with youth apprenticeships in Pennsylvania, there is an intermediary agency such as NTIEC coordinating the work of the partnership. NTIEC and other coordinating agencies can manage the logistics involved in recruiting youths into career education programs, matching student interests with employer needs, and monitoring the quality of the experience for apprentices and the quality of their effort. These partnerships are essential. Federal and state funders for schools should consider incentives to encourage stronger partnering with employers. Employer investments in career education programs help youths develop into responsible adults and reduce the financial burdens on public schools by leveraging community resources to help develop the skills of the next generation of workers. Career awareness and developing key workplace skills in a school setting is limited in effectiveness and costly. Work-based experiences not only work better, they can provide experience on state-of-the-art equipment without the need for schools to invest in vocational training centers.

Challenges

School participation is most often supported by administrators who have experience in the private sector, in the military, in vocational education, or in agricultural programs. Educators who have spent their entire lives in schools, focused entirely on academic achievement, seldom see the value of work-based learning. NTIEC has had success winning over educators to the work-based learning approach through the Educator in the Workplace Program. Another valuable experience for educators is to get a tour of the workplace by their youth apprentices. Most are impressed by the depth of learning, the scope of job responsibilities, and the increased confidence displayed by the YAP participants.

Unfortunately, raising awareness and developing support for the program is an ongoing process. Turnover makes it important to continue career awareness programs for educators. When school districts change superintendents, administrators, guidance staff, or other key supporters of an apprenticeship program, the programs are too often discontinued. The same is true when administrations change at the state or federal level. Organizational partnerships must expand relationships beyond individual leaders.

Raising awareness is a constant objective. One effective approach at P&G is the year end YAP celebration. Educators and parents attend the event and students share highlightsfrom their YAP experience and tour visitors through their work areas. Both students and mentors are recognized with framed certificates of appreciation from NTIEC.

Resources to Sustain Programs

Financial needs have been the biggest challenge to sustainability. Over the years, work-based learning has become a key priority of the Pennsylvania Workforce Investment Board. This priority has resulted in regional career education partnerships (RCEPs) that were funded for several years with workforce Investment Act (WIA) discretionary funds. Due to recent reductions in discretionary fund percentages, the WIA funds have dried up. Private companies such as P&G, Cargill, Cabot Oil and Gas, Chesapeake, People’s Bank, and Frontier Communications have been very generous with donations ranging from $5,000 to $100,000. Local foundations such as the Taylor Family Foundation, Wyoming County Community Health Foundation, and others have also helped with grants ranging up to $15,000. A strong and engaged board has been essential to NTIEC’s sustained success, with many of the members serving for 20 years.

Having a board that understands the value of career education and actively supports it is key. A good example is Fred Robinson, who after retirement from Osram Sylvania, volunteers to emcee the NTIEC’s Career Day events. Donna Porter, Mountain View High School’s guidance counselor, has placed 15 students in YAP, and Brian Zeidner of Claverack Electric has frequently taught student workshops on careers in the electric utilities. Minturn Smith of P&G stepped in to fill the executive director role at NTIEC when an unexpected vacancy occurred. We were especially pleased when Mark Carpenter, one of NTIEC’s first youth apprentices, joined the board and more recently accepted the role of board chair. He is living proof that the YAP experience changes lives in a positive way. After his successful YAP stint at P&G, Carpenter went on to earn an MBA and is the chief financial officer of Sire Power Select, an international company based in northeast Pennsylvania. He acknowledges that YAP was key to his fulfilling his true potential and making solid career choices.

Conclusion: The Need for “First Chance” Policies

Why do we need youth apprenticeships? There are many wrong turns that today’s youngsters can take, resulting in dropping out of school, drug abuse, incarceration, or just wasting several years before finding a career path. After working with YAP for 20 years, I am persuaded that responsible adult mentors in the workplace and the pride that honest work instills are an important way to reverse these trends. We need “first chance” programs like YAP to replace the costly “second chance” programs like remedial education, drug rehab, welfare, and incarceration.

Unfortunately, neither Pennsylvania nor the nation has effective “first chance” workforce development policies. WIA funds (some $170 million per year for Pennsylvania) are restricted to programs for people with barriers to employment. While providing second chances is a noble cause, we may get a much better return on our tax dollars by leveraging effective career awareness and workplace skill development programs to counter the apathy and lukewarm attitudes that many students have toward public education as it is currently delivered. It makes sense to help the vast middle group of students (our future workforce) who have not thought about possible careers or about how to prepare for them. Should we choose to invest in this effort, the return on investment will far outstrip the cost.

The estimated cost for nationwide investment in “first chance” workforce development programs like Pennsylvania’s RCEP model is $250 million/year, or about $5 million per state per year. First- and second-year funding of $100 million and $150 million would support a reasonable ramping up to full capacity. If new money is not available, policy changes could allow more flexibility for current WIA funds by elimination of restrictions. For example, although Pennsylvania receives about $170 million in WIA funding, currently only 5% of that funding is not promised to specific “second-chance” programs. If even 10% to 20% of the funding was unrestricted, it would enable the Commonwealth to serve thousands of students with youth apprenticeship programs and millions with enhanced career education programs. I would also recommend that federal and state funding for education partially depend on schools partnering with employers to implement these programs.

Based on my 20 years of experience with work-based learning, I am persuaded that every dollar invested in intermediaries brings an additional 10 dollars or more to the table from employers. This includes wages for workplace mentors and trainers, student wages, equipment and supplies, and cash donations. In a resource-starved education system, this brings new resources to help educate our next generation.

“First chance” programs would eventually reduce the need for “second chance” programs, which are very costly. Savings accrue to both society and individuals by preventing false starts in college, reducing unemployment, reducing juvenile justice costs, as well as preventing youths from dropping out of school or otherwise losing their way. I know from first-hand experience that NTIEC youth apprentices, with the help of their workplace mentors, are quickly transformed into responsible, focused young adults with goals for career success and the knowledge to get there. They grow up to become contributing members of society. Developing such programs nationwide is critical to our future. It will require joint leadership from government, education, and the private sector. Most important, success will depend on local intermediaries with funding not just for a single year but secure, multi-year support to provide the “boots on the ground” needed to get the job done. The effort is akin to gardening; it requires constant, sustained focus over time to get the desired results. Historically, gaps in funding have hurt students and raised skepticism from both employers and educators.

We know how to establish youth apprenticeships, we know they benefit students, and we know they meet employers needs for a skilled workforce. We know it is less costly to do it right the first time. We simply need the will to do it!

* The one exception has been hospital internships, which are normally unpaid.