Job Training

You would think that after awhile Pensacola would get the message..Why do not we have a first class training center for construction trades? I am not talking about the little bull shit programs the School boards offer. I am talking about real time, real training and that puts you into a job. We can build Parks and Ball Stadiums that cost a 100 million and have Mega concert and mega concerts on the beach but hardly a dime to train our citizens.
There is work to be had. Maybe not hot dog sellers and nipple ring models. But there is work to be had.
But I doubt if good training programs happen and this will just be considered a rant by a old retired Blue collar worker. But is really a shame that we turn our backs on people and choose not to implement good efficient quality programs that can help people of all ages improve their lives. From the PNJ............................................................................................................................Mark McGruder recruits new employees for Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., and he’s looking for workers in Pensacola, among other places.
From the PNJ
1 • Is Ingalls Shipbuilding hiring and looking for veterans?

We’re trying very hard to expand our veterans outreach and hire veterans. We expect to hire more than 2,000 workers over the next two years or so, including electricians, welders and machinists. Our top journeymen people make $22.80 an hour plus benefits.

2 • Where will these jobs be located?

At our shipbuilding facility in Pascagoula, about 100 miles from Pensacola. We have contracts to build ships for the Navy and Coast Guard. Some employees live in Pensacola and commute to our facility. There’s a company that runs vans every day.

3 • What if an applicant doesn’t possess all the skills you’re looking for right away for Ingalls’ production line?

We do train. Although we’d like to hire journeymen-level tradespeople, we do hire below that in a category we call apprentices. We’ll bring in people with minimal requirements, a high school diploma or GED and who are old enough to work. We train them over a three- or four-year period in a combination of classroom instruction and hands-on experience.

4 • What are the qualifications to gain admittance to your apprentice program?

Basically, high school math, among other things. Building ships may look like just hard labor, but there’s a lot of math that goes into being a pipefitter. There are different angles, measuring and cuts. We also test for basic reading and comprehension.

5 • Why come all the way to Pensacola to recruit veterans?

There isn’t a military base close to Pascagoula. So we send information about our jobs to bases around the Southeast. We also attend job fairs in Jacksonville, Illinois and Oklahoma. We’ll travel to where the people are who have the skills we need, test them and make sure they’re right for our jobs.




Here is my son teaching my grandson(14 Years old) the basics of welding in my backyard. I know he isnt wearing a glove, he was just showing his son a tip. But the point is. We dont have to have industry in our back yard but we need to train people for the jobs. Of course I am biased. My son just got certified to teach pipe fitting for a major construction company. 1200 miles away. It dosent have to be.

If we could ever get over the idea that we can party and drink our way into success we will be better off.
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After I posted , I noticed this..Pensacola State College gets $2M for welding project Note they are going to spend 1 million on equipment. I would wager that this will be another bloated, non real world program that will not place many people in jobs. I have a one year Auto Tech diploma from PJC so I know first hand how worthless some of their "Trade" courses are.

There is a Maritime Training Center in Mobile, the offer various courses in welding and other shipyard and industrial vocations.

Correct. That is what we should have here.........


Resembling a loaded container ship, Mobile's new $12 million Maritime Science Center was designed by Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood Inc. to serve as a billboard, of sorts, for the local shipbuilding industry. But behind its sleek, modern facade, up to 700 people each year will get training designed to transform them into workers with exactly the skills area shipyards need.
Despite an economy that's still struggling, most local yards last week said they anticipate growing their workforce, and shipbuilders welcome the state-run center, which is scheduled for construction beginning in October and should open about a year from now.
The site will be dedicated on Monday, with Gov. Bob Riley scheduled to break a bottle of muscadine grape juice from a local vineyard over a shipping container on the 22-acre site.
The input of four nearby shipyards - Austal USA, Atlantic Marine, Bender Shipbuilding & Repair Co. and C&G Boat Works - was key to designing the center, said Ed Castile, director of Alabama Industrial Development Training, an arm of the state's two-year college system that is spearheading the project. It boasts an open floor plan with classrooms and offices overlooking a wide-open training area. Equipment can be easily moved to the upper floor in case of a flood.
The site is a stone's throw east of Austal's modular manufacturing facility now under construction on the Mobile River's east ban

hallmarkgrad wrote:After I posted , I noticed this..Pensacola State College gets $2M for welding project Note they are going to spend 1 million on equipment. I would wager that this will be another bloated, non real world program that will not place many people in jobs. I have a one year Auto Tech diploma from PJC so I know first hand how worthless some of their "Trade" courses are.

do they really need 2mil for this?

i could build 10 labs and hire 10 people for a year to teach for that much, including rent and benefits.

i hope for pcolas sake someone takes the job training and the job getting situation seriously.I like pcola, but they are not competing with other local areas for these big companies to come there. which is odd because pcola has all the things they need to compete. did they ever do anything with that port down there?

most labor trades mentor and take apprentices... it's not as common today i think because there isn't as much desire to work hard. the trade schools should be private only and limited to the scale of persons that have worked in a field and have shown aptitude. peanut butter is good... but once you cover your bread you don't keep slathering it up your arm.

In the late 80s Employers were given tax credits up to 50 cents on every dollar spent on an employee hiring who had been on Welfare. I have told this story before on the PNJ, but this was a great program for my business. I received half of the employees salary as a dollar for dollar tax credit, not tax deduction. Now half the employees worked out, and half did not. I remember having one single mother with zero skills who we put as a receptionist. The comments we got from customers were very negative, but after 6 months training, and our employees helping this person she began to learn. Her grammar, her clear speaking, and her productivity jumped the next 6 months. She moved to California to be near family, and about 5 years ago she called me and thanked me for that opportunity. She was in management now, and all of her kids had attended college.

I mean it was not easy. One of the employees was simply scatterbrained and simply had to take a fed ex to the box. She comes back to the office crying that she does not know what she did with the fed ex envelope. We took an hour tracking what she did in the office and actually went to the gas station near the office,and we went through the garbage cans and found that she had put the fed ex letter in the garbage can. She eventually did not work out.

I have argued on these forums for 7 years that the solution is return tax rates to the 90s. With the new revenues give tax credits to hire people and create jobs. It is amazing how willing people are to learn and be given an opportunity. The stereotypes are BS when you see somebody struggling as a product of failed school systems. I am in business to make a profit. A 50% tax credit drops my labor costs and puts a dollar for dollar credit in my pocket because I run the business as a sub chapter S Corporation. Training is best done in the workplace, but government can be a huge if we would simply go back to some of the Reagan successes with job tax credits.

i think your premise that raising taxes is a long term solution for revenue is fatally flawed. short term it might pad the numbers and probably benefit keynesian/progressive economic ideology to go further... but in the long term our only chance to sustain govt revenue is private economic growth. stealing fuel from the engine won't make it run better... you can lean the mixture for awhile... but eventually you will crisp the cylinders and kill production.

2seaoat wrote:In the late 80s Employers were given tax credits up to 50 cents on every dollar spent on an employee hiring who had been on Welfare. I have told this story before on the PNJ, but this was a great program for my business. I received half of the employees salary as a dollar for dollar tax credit, not tax deduction. Now half the employees worked out, and half did not. I remember having one single mother with zero skills who we put as a receptionist. The comments we got from customers were very negative, but after 6 months training, and our employees helping this person she began to learn. Her grammar, her clear speaking, and her productivity jumped the next 6 months. She moved to California to be near family, and about 5 years ago she called me and thanked me for that opportunity. She was in management now, and all of her kids had attended college.

I mean it was not easy. One of the employees was simply scatterbrained and simply had to take a fed ex to the box. She comes back to the office crying that she does not know what she did with the fed ex envelope. We took an hour tracking what she did in the office and actually went to the gas station near the office,and we went through the garbage cans and found that she had put the fed ex letter in the garbage can. She eventually did not work out.

I have argued on these forums for 7 years that the solution is return tax rates to the 90s. With the new revenues give tax credits to hire people and create jobs. It is amazing how willing people are to learn and be given an opportunity. The stereotypes are BS when you see somebody struggling as a product of failed school systems. I am in business to make a profit. A 50% tax credit drops my labor costs and puts a dollar for dollar credit in my pocket because I run the business as a sub chapter S Corporation. Training is best done in the workplace, but government can be a huge if we would simply go back to some of the Reagan successes with job tax credits.

I don't know how many times I 've said this,Seaoat. They do this already. My employer is part of that program that hires people and gets tax credits.

Hell in California the companies get paid by the State to hire Pedophiles. FACT !

i think your premise that raising taxes is a long term solution for revenue is fatally flawed.

It is not fatally flawed when there is a 16 trillion dollar deficit. I agree when this is reduced in half and we are running balanced budgets that we should lower taxes.....but this idea that lowering taxes is good has been proven wrong......when spending continues to expand. We need to pay. period! Not expect our grandchildren to pay......just one more babyboomer selfish let me get mine mentality.

Here is where schools like PSC miss the boat. PSC will use its portion of the grant to purchase more than $1 million in equipment for the first year. That will include a mobile welding training unit with traditional welding stations and virtual simulators, supplies for students and salaries and professional development for a welding instructor, electronics instructor, curriculum specialist and career coach.

You dont need a Curriculum specialist and a career coach to do this. Just a true desire to be the very best at what you do. Just teach the damn course and get the people started. What are the odds the Welding instructor or the Career coach will have ever worked a "Shut downs"

I don't know how many times I 've said this,Seaoat. They do this already. My employer is part of that program that hires people and gets tax credits.

Yes, but as I have said repeatedly they are not very generous to an employer. Currently, some of the credits are capped at a couple of thousand dollars.....even with veterans most are targeted credits at 6k, An employer is not going to make a decision based on chicken feed. We need 100% targeted job credits for returning manufacturing jobs which hire veterans. It is a no brainer. We need to tax Mitt Romney at 20% on capital gains, and raise the top rate to 45%. Pay down the national debt and bring American jobs home as we grow our GDP. To simply say we have job credits is window dressing. We need urgently to collect more revenue and fund job credits with realistic incentives.....$2,400 credit to hire a veteran....pleasssse. I know there are higher credits, but most of the veteran stuff is window dressing. You want to solve veteran unemployment, return our tax rates to 1990 for everybody, and give 100% two year credits to employers who bring manufacturing jobs back to America. We will return to prosperity.