In Dayton, Strickland said he was “inspired” by the story of Lee Gillis Jr., 43, a laid-off worker who said he used advanced manufacturing training at the IUE-CWA Service Center to land a new job at an auto parts plan.
In Springboro, Brown was told that companies need to be able to move to different banks more easily and that worker training should always be a top priority.
Renegade — a producer of lightweight composite materials for the military and commercial aerospace markets — opened its 25,000-square-foot facility in January 2008 off South Tech Boulevard and today has 15 employees.
But Eric Collins, Renegade chief executive, said the company’s materials recently qualified for production with an engine manufacturer, and the company is planning an expansion that will lead to a wider plant footprint and 160 jobs.
Renegade’s customers include General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.
Among Renegade’s local employees are former Delphi and DMAX workers Shannon Smith and Christopher Hocker. Both men sang the praises of worker training efforts and state efforts to bring Renegade to the Dayton area. Renegade — which has a sister plant in Blue Ash — had benefited from about $1 million in Ohio Third Frontier funding.
Brown also visited Xenia, Middletown and Cincinnati.
In Dayton, Strickland toured retraining classrooms with union leaders. The union is using a $3.9 million federal stimulus grant to retrain up to 600 laid-off workers over two years in advanced manufacturing skills. Sixty-eight already have completed training, leaders said.
“Good luck. ... Life is rough. You’re trying to fight back,” Strickland told students.
At a press conference, Gillis, a graduate of the program, said he lost his job in 2008 at the Cobasys battery plant in Springboro. He landed a new job after he told his prospective employer about his retraining.
“From that point on, the interview changed,” said Gillis.
Strickland touted what he said was Ohio’s competitive business tax environment and criticized his Republican opponent, John Kasich, for saying Ohio’s tax system isn’t competitive.
In a new statewide TV ad, Kasich said Ohio is “one of the highest tax states in the country.”
Rob Nichols, Kasich’s campaign spokesman, said in an e-mail that Strickland “should knock on the door of any small business in Dayton and ask them if they think their taxes are too high. They will agree with the Tax Foundation which found that Ohioans shoulder the 7th highest tax burden in the nation.”
While the Tax Foundation ranked Ohio seventh, the Federation of Tax Administrators puts Ohio in the middle of the pack, at 25th, in per capita state and local tax collections.
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