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Work force training key to growing auto cluster
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Last June, the Center for Accelerated Technology Training began training people for jobs at the new DaimlerChrysler assembly plant in Ladson.
Held at Trident Technical College, the CATT training used a combination of hands-on assembling and online computer instruction to teach the soon-to-be new hires how to put together DaimlerChrysler’s Sprinter van. Over the next several months, CATT trained 190 DaimlerChrysler workers who now assemble about 20 vans a day, said CATT senior manager Jeff Tisdale.
The CATT program will resume at Trident Tech at the end of February and train another 35 workers for DaimlerChrysler, rounding out the auto company’s initial hiring goal of 225 employees.
If Sprinter van sales take off in North America to the point where DaimlerChrysler needs to hire more workers to assemble the vehicles, then CATT will train more assembly workers for DaimlerChrysler, Tisdale added.
CATT, which provides pre-employment training at South Carolina’s 16 technical colleges, was established in 1961 by the state Legislature to lure industry to a then-largely agrarian South Carolina. Since its inception, the program has trained about 210,000 workers for some 2,000 companies representing a variety of industries, Tisdale said.
Today, providing work force training primarily through CATT is the strategy the Lowcountry’s economic developers rely on to attract more automotive-related manufacturers and suppliers to the Lowcountry.
“CATT has been an important economic development tool over many years and has been particularly important to recruiting the automotive sector. BMW was the pioneer that took the chance that South Carolina manufacturing workers could be re-trained to produce a high-end automobile,” said David Ginn, president and CEO of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance.
CATT plays a vital role in 90% of the Alliance’s recruitment projects, Ginn added.
Had it not been for CATT, German auto manufacturer BMW probably would not have come to South Carolina, he said.
When BMW arrived in Spartanburg County 12 years ago, the manufacturing facility not only hired 4,500 employees and made a $2 billion investment in the Upstate, it attracted to South Carolina 49 suppliers accounting for an additional 8,000 jobs, according to BMW.
“The CATT recipe is simple, but the results are dramatic: Take a handful of conscientious and motivated South Carolinians and whip them into a customized, world-class work force,” said Steve Dykes, Charleston County’s economic development director.
To attract potential hires for a company, CATT advertises job descriptions in newspapers, on the radio and online. Applicants are pre-screened either by a job agency or by the company, tested to determine their skill levels, interviewed by the company and then selected for CATT’s pre-employment training, which leads to full-time employment for those who complete the training program.
CATT offers its services to companies that will hire at least 10 employees and pay a minimum of $10 an hour plus full benefits, said Jim Maxon, CATT director for the tri-county area.
DaimlerChrysler’s CATT-trained assembly workers came from other local companies and are earning on average about $5 an hour more than they earned at their previous jobs, Tisdale noted.
For its Ladson plant, DaimlerChrysler sent several local trainees to Germany and Spain to learn first-hand the Sprinter van assembly process so they could become CATT trainers at Trident Tech, Ginn said.
The Lowcountry’s automotive cluster is one of five industry clusters recommended for development in the region by the AngelouEconomics report, an economic-development blueprint for the Lowcountry. The other clusters are creative industries, biosciences, aerospace and advanced security.
About 30 manufacturers, suppliers and other non-retail, automotive-related businesses are located in the Lowcountry, half of them in Charleston County, said Kelly Bozard, Charleston County’s assistant economic development director.
Fuel-injector manufacturer Robert Bosch Corp. in Dorchester County, emergency vehicle maker American LaFrance in Berkeley County and DaimlerChrysler in Charleston County are the region’s automotive heavyweights. Bosch alone boasts a payroll of nearly 2,300 employees and is Dorchester County’s largest employer. American LaFrance has 420 employees and DaimlerChrysler initially will have 225.
Last year, Bozard visited all the companies in the Lowcountry’s automotive cluster to find out their concerns about doing business in the region.
Finding skilled workers, particularly those who can read blueprints, know basic measuring techniques and are familiar with lean manufacturing, a philosophy in which manufacturing processes are streamlined to improve quality and expedite product delivery to customers, was the biggest concern, Bozard said.
To address those needs, the Lowcountry Manufacturers Council, a consortium of manufacturers throughout the tri-county area, started a training program earlier this month with $22,000 of funding from the Trident Workforce Investment Board. Of the program’s 85 participants, 73% work in the automotive industry, said Jennifer DeWitt, the council’s program administrator.
Another major concern was the lack of electrical and mechanical technicians, Bozard noted.
In January, Trident Tech used a $100,000 donation from the Alcoa Foundation to launch an apprenticeship program for electrical and mechanical technicians. Apprentices spend four days a week doing hands-on work at the company and one day a week taking classes at Trident.
After completing the four-year program, employees will earn between $14 and $20 an hour, depending on the industry and company they work for. Currently, four companies, of which three are from the automotive sector, are participating in the program, said John Snowden, Trident’s vice president of continuing education and economic development.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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