Midlands Technical College and Michelin North America in Lexington are partnering in an effort to increase the supply of skilled maintenance and process technicians that both Michelin and the advanced manufacturing industry statewide need.
Midlands Tech and the tire maker are spreading the word that jobs in engineering technology are available, pay well and can lead to greater opportunities.
Midlands Tech president Sonny White also points out that those same skills will be needed in emerging industries — such as fuel cells and nanotechnology — that Columbia business and government leaders are trying to attract.
Even though Midlands Tech has an associate-degree program in engineering technologies, White said, it is not able to meet the anticipated demand.
The college already has electrical and electronic engineering technologies programs, he said, and is looking to bring back the mechanical engineering technologies program.
Midlands Tech also has made putting a new engineering technologies building on the Northeast Campus its No. 1 priority, White said.
But a problem bigger than programs or facilities might be attracting students — and part of that problem might be perception.
“We need to get away from the old image of manufacturing, which was largely the old textile industry,” White said.
Having Michelin representatives along when Midlands Tech recruiters go to area high schools can help dispel that image.
Michelin holds a seat on the college’s advisory council, White said, and the company is helping with both curriculum and recruiting efforts.
Michelin has about 200 skilled maintenance workers today, but over the next 10 years, about half of them will be retiring.
Other advanced manufacturing plants around the state will have similar needs, White said.
“The maintenance and the technical jobs are among the most highly compensated in manufacturing,” said Raul Fernandez-Carreras, Michelin’s site manager in Lexington.
Pay for graduates of Midlands Tech’s engineering programs starts in the upper $30,000s to low $40,000s, said Starnell Bates, Midlands Tech vice president.
Fernandez also pointed out that it is not uncommon for skilled technical maintenance people to move to increasing responsibility in the plant and into management.
“We have people in the plant that started in technical areas that today they are in human resources. They are in management and executive jobs.”
Michelin has had limited success on its own trying to attract workers to maintenance technology, even with a program like Michelin Scholars, said Winfred Greene, plant personnel manager.
Under the Michelin Scholars program, a student gets a job with Michelin — at least 20 hours a week at about $9 an hour — plus company benefits, and Michelin pays for tuition and books.
The company budgets about five positions a year for the program, and students do not have to commit to staying with Michelin at the end of the program.
“We do it for our company,” Fernandez said, “but we do it to support the community.”
The program has been running for about 10 years, Greene said, and about 20-25 percent of the students “are keepers.”
“We have had difficulty in getting enough students to go into the program, difficulty appealing to the high schools.”
That is partly why Michelin joined Midlands Tech to promote engineering technology and to reach out to teachers, administrators, counselors and parents at those high schools, Fernandez said.
“We have exposed people,” Greene said, “but we have not been nearly as successful as we planned on being, as we are sure we will be with the partnership with Midlands Tech.
“We have real needs. Right now, we have maintenance positions that are not being filled.”
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