TRAINING PROGRAMS
BioOhio (likely start in June)
Skills Trac (open)
Composite Technicians (session is full)
Defense Acquisition Academy (session is full)
POSSIBLE PROGRAMS
Information Technology Certification
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Photonics
Electronic Medical Records
When the recent recession hit hard, J.R. Shelton was laid off from Mancor Industries in Dayton. When someone advised him not to “sit around” during the layoff, the Huber Heights resident got angry.
“I wasn’t going to sit around,” Shelton said.
Instead, he headed to Sinclair Community College, enrolling in Skills Trac, a training program designed to produce maintenance technicians ready to handle hydraulics, electronics, motors and more.
Shelton’s former employer was impressed that the 57-year-old strengthened his skills while he was laid off, Shelton said. “They thought it was amazing at my age that I went back to school.”
Mancor — a components supplier to the trucking industry — called Shelton back to work.
The local array of training programs — like Skills Trac — gives displaced workers options. It’s up to workers to pick up the gauntlet and update their skills, say those overseeing the training.
“You have to have the credentials and the skills and that’s what’s really, really important for displaced workers to understand,” said Deb Norris, Sinclair’s vice president for workforce development and corporate services.
To that end, there has been a spate of programs recently offered, usually through a partnership of Sinclair with either the county Department of Job and Family Services, the National Composite Center in Kettering or other schools and universities.
Federal funding has enabled that partnership to start training programs that those involved say may not exist anywhere else: multilevel training to work as composite materials technicians, an academy devoted to work in defense acquisitions and more.
And it’s just beginning. BioOhio and Sinclair have been awarded $5 million to train workers in the biosciences industry. Sinclair’s Workforce Development office also is planning programs in photonics, unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic medical records and more.
Though the composites training and the acquisitions academy sessions are full, it’s likely future versions of those efforts — open to those who have jobs as well as those between jobs — will be offered. After all, Norris said each of these programs were “stood up” with the future in mind.
Future programs will be based on what employers say they need. For example, contracting and acquisitions officials at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base have been consulted in shaping the Defense Acquisition Academy.
“We’re really working hard on the uptick side with employers,” said Laura Mercer, a coordinator of workforce initiatives for Sinclair.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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