The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Manufacturing workers build skills via Sinclair program

Jan Satterfield, who lost her job at Tubing International Automotive in Washington Court House, studies at Sinclair's Advanced Integrated Manufacturing Center.

Ty Greenlees/Staff Photographer Jan Satterfield, who lost her job at Tubing International Automotive in Washington Court House, studies at Sinclair's Advanced Integrated Manufacturing Center.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Sinclair's Advanced Integrated Manufacturing Center held an open house Friday, Feb. 5, to showcase its training program for industrial hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical and mechanical systems. Nelson Thomas is studying at the AIM Center after he lost his job at Automation and Control Technology in Columbus. Staff photo by Ty Greenlees

Ty Greenlees/Staff Photographer Sinclair's Advanced Integrated Manufacturing Center held an open house Friday, Feb. 5, to showcase its training program for industrial hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical and mechanical systems. Nelson Thomas is studying at the AIM Center after he lost his job at Automation and Control Technology in Columbus. Staff photo by Ty Greenlees

ENLARGE PHOTO

Dayton Children's website ranks high in study
New 20 min. ago
Behr names new vice president
New 21 min. ago
Dayton Mall shoe store moving to mall’s front porch
New 22 min. ago
GE to hire 5,000 veterans, add 400 new manufacturing jobs
9:37 a.m.
Groundwater monitoring well offers clues to the health of local industry
7:29 a.m.
> More headlines

By Thomas Gnau, Staff Writer Updated 11:33 PM Friday, February 5, 2010

DAYTON — After Nelson Thomas was laid off in 2008 from a field service engineering position, he started contacting employers.

The Washington Twp. resident quickly learned what those employers wanted: more skills and the ability to handle a variety of tasks at any time in multiple ways.

Thomas thought the Skills Trac program at Sinclair Community College’s Advanced Integrated Manufacturing (AIM) Center might put him on the right track.

The AIM center opened its doors to the public Friday, Feb. 5, for a rare open house, said Sinclair spokesman Gary Honnert.

The center is now home to the SkillsTrac program, parts of which had previously been housed in Sinclair property on Eaker Street and elsewhere.

SkillsTrac isn’t new and its mission hasn’t changed, although it may be more urgent in this economy. The idea is to transform students like Thomas — including those who have no manufacturing experience — into skilled maintenance technicians, ready to work with motors, hydraulics, electronics and more.

“More employers want people who can multitask, if you will,” said Joe Florence, a SkillsTrac instructor.

Thomas, 54, started the SkillsTrac curriculum in June 2009. He can proceed at his own pace, tackling courses online at home or in the AIM Center lab in Sinclair’s Building 13, off Fifth Street.

That works because about 80 percent of SkillsTrac students have jobs and are trying to strengthen their abilities, said Michael Freed, a Sinclair senior project manager. Those students need to work on their own schedule.

Someone who devotes 40 hours a week to the program may finish in six months, Freed said. Others may take a year to 18 months.

That lab took advantage of space freed up when Dayton City Schools moved certain operations from the AIM center into the new Ponitz Center last fall. SkillsTrac was able to line up PLC (programmable logic controller) systems, as well as industrial hydraulic, pneumatic and motor control stations.

Contact this reporter  at (937) 225-2390 or  tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.