your high school prepares our students grades nine through twelve for the ever changing and growing wide range of post secondary options available to graduates every year our graduates have the opportunity to engage in so many post secondary choices they consider some will go on to prepare for careers that require a four year university degree or greater some will experience a two year program some will go on to career in technical schools and or training through the military today we have clear goo from the university of pittsburgh to talk with us about the booming local manufacturing market in the tri state area clare is the marketing and outreach specialist for manufacturing assistance center and the industrial engineering swanson school of engineering at the university of pittsburgh welcome claire that was a mouthful welcome so clear i have and i've had the opportunity we've met before and we've talked about this wonderful program that's going on through pitt and i just thought it would be important for her to share some of what's happening with our students and with our community i understand the university of pittsburgh has a major has been a major player in preparing local people for the manufacturing workforce how did the really tailored towards connecting people with jobs in the infection sector so it's an economic workforce initiative it's really one of the only technical school programs that are offered in the country that's funded by university and so it's excess is really an attribute to what happens when a university jobs that are going to be needed to be filled in the manufacturing sector so machinists c n c programmers operations that just go now locally in southwestern pennsylvania so there's a dire need for people to go into this sector and these jobs are lucrative people are earning  eighteen twenty twenty two dollars an hour and just from getting a certificate in c and c programming or operation wow ok so tell us a little bit about the programming the pit is offering so we have three different models that students can do we can do like a basic introductory to persuasion manufacturing class with a c n c programming operations class we have a cad class which is more of an event c n c class and so those are all high party accusations and southwestern pennsylvania kind of going back to it we just mentioned about having so many jobs manufacturing sector because there's a stigma against these jobs you know there's this stork look at manufacturing jobs and people think that they're from blue collar florida there is a dirty jobs and they aren't there on very high tech manufacturing settings they all have very beautiful facilities that are white walls and dance technology and so we're just trying to get people to go into this sector by giving them the opportunity with our programming for free for free while so how can that afford to offer such free can take pieces away these c n c machines are able to chisel away pieces of metal until you get to the final product but we look at a lot of you know advanced technology in the new factoring that we talk about like additive technology in the future of manufacturing in three d printing with metal is also very important and it's you know being explored by a lot of major manufacturing companies however it's still you know a couple years away from it feasibly doing a cost efficiently so this is kind of still these jobs that people need so these are just some so millimeter so what type of skills would a student need to enter into the manufacturing industry has a great question we have students that love to use their hands like what shah you know like computer automation anything with coding really there's a lot of pipelines that we're trying to strengthen with you know getting the next generation manufacturers and so we've seen a lot of success from students especially who really like computers aren't going to like coding so that's a great asset to have for something like being able to program computer aided design so so one of our students potentially could come through our programs that we offer here of high school which are we do have cad and we do have a few manufacturing programs and we do have wood shop and students also have the ability to go to the western area career technology center to get training there as well so they could have that as a precursor and actually come in before the student who is going through high school has never been introduced to any of that and then they think oh i think i might like to do that are they able to come what kind of academic skills would they need to be able to walk into your classroom really i mean it's it's open to interpretation so the students really does need to be interested in making things for their hands and looking at the future of me factoring in you know connecting people gap of twenty two thousand jobs that are available or working on strengthening this maker to manufacture a pipeline and really introducing kids to just especially do our programming at the mac or were located in home once we initiatives so so you have three programs the basic one is the basic machine and that's was it eight weeks i think eight weeks it's eight weeks long and then it's monday through friday from eight to eight four so it's pretty intensive but it's fast we have a student graduated from high school on friday just a couple days ago and he started our program yesterday he's going to do two models over the summer and then when his friends go off to college on labor day weekend you know he's going to have a job making fifty thousand dollars a year wow that's incredible all from the summer all from summer school here so that was the other question so pay offers is training in manufacturing what type of degree are certifications can you get in this the certificate credits in tippett which is over a semester and that's for free that is that's incredible so they get to come for free get the training there are eight up to eighteen credits and through the university of pittsburgh which which branch of the university is the main campus the main campus through the school of engineering at that through this wonderful engineering they want to launch so great and the certifications that they earned where can i if i decide i've got the certification i want to work i don't want to stay because we're getting more even though the jobs are here if there were another place in the country could i take a certification absolutely certifications and especially in addition to the sort of certification look at university of pittsburgh we're also getting a it's with the states we will receive a certificate from the state of pennsylvania and the apprenticeship and training office those are universally accepted certificates and we also have names credentials which is the national institute of machining look at credentials for that as well and so really they can go anywhere there's manufacturing hubs throughout america there are people just as desperate as manufacturing companies and help us normal media trying to get new employees so what are the local all national workforce needs at this time and do we anticipate like the next you know fifteen years companies would expand if they could if they had employees they would expand we worked really closely about twenty five companies in southwestern pennsylvania and then our students generally will go off to a pool of run one hundred employees one hundred companies in southwestern pennsylvania so and we hear this daily these companies need c n c programmers they need c n c operators and machinists and they would expand if they cut it but they just don't have this workforce that so it's it's very successful southwestern pennsylvania is machining in the manufacturing sector right now so the three year is would be the basic machine the c n c programming in the third one is cad and so terms of teaching so i know you said you were located in the old westinghouse found every over in homewood and i remember when we spoke earlier you said that that was probably you were probably the least cool our entity that was in the building so it sounds like that's an area that's kind of up and coming that there backley it was an old westinghouse foundry that's in homewood and virtually capital purchased it five or so years ago and transition it really into a hub of small to medium sized manufacturing companies so there's aside from us there's boxy which makes the ready printers the trade is a two to pittsburgh fair which teaches people masonry and carpentry skills and welding and then the red is there which makes the fabric and a backpack they're making a backpack but a fabric that's made from recycled bottles from right over that would be bad so how do i apply for a program with a website you can apply online you can call call us at four one two five zero one six five six four but our website smack  june for days come and go on august early august so if i were interested i should get online grabbed a senior you could have a couple months off before you start in august wow you are programming and honestly we are placing especially students in our cad programming percent most viruses get jobs where they graduate all of them get jobs within the local area in the local area where you while the incredible how to manufacture in companies down in washington county i know we were talking earlier about there being a local company and we're going to have somebody from their company come in later on this year and do a show with him so that we can learn more about manufacturing it looks like we're going to get ready for a commercial break and we will stop there and then we will be happy to come back a few minutes i'm naomi judd and i love my dogs but disasters like hurricanes and floods and tornadoes hits another animals injured abandoned or lost american h association has red star rescue has been there when disaster strikes to learn how you can protect your entire family go to an american humane  cared about and i'd be over thinking about what happened in iraq three months ago they're almost like a stranger when you come back everything is different to your kind of discombobulated people were asking me how it was but i got the sounds dave couldn't relate to what i had been through so i just stopped talking about it it made a tremendous difference in my life tonight chose to get help in hindsight it probably saved my life save my marriage i personally believe that i'm also a better soldier sometimes when you come home you can see negative distressing concern you can all be out soon will be got you're not going to be the same person afterwards that you were before you deployed and don't try to be accept who you are now figure out how to move forward and make that possible  together we can change the news find out how a safe kids dot org welcome back to our show i'm judy alexander in a meeting today with claire guth from the university of pittsburgh and we're talking about manufacturing in the local area and some wonderful opportunities that the university of pittsburgh has embarked upon to provide for local citizens  claire welcome back to our show where we left off i started thinking about the academic crew requisites so if i'm a high school student and i'm graduating this year and i'm thinking about do i you know like my math skills may not be strong  perhaps there are holes in my learning can i still apply to this program and what kind of support would be there for me once i got there one hundred percent i would say the average math grade reading level of coming in is  have a tremendous staff of people that are really you know just tremendous it's teaching people now so you don't have to be a strong student again you don't take her as a tease to get into this university pittsburgh initiative ok ok so so you do have some kind of support us about this teaching staff you said that you have an instructor her who came from that other school down the road if i if i come and i'm from some relatively medium size high school or some places some other says may come from a smaller school will i do i expect that i'll be sitting in a lecture hall with three hundred hundred other student knows a very fun atmosphere we have a lot of immersive learning but at the same time we've classroom training so our students are classes top at twelve students so we have a very important to have teacher time ok so what would you say if you could think about the ratio of the time that one would spend in the books versus the top of that they would spend on the floor with the manufacturing in actually doing the and so on it's about thirty percent of the classroom learning other half the other seventy percent of students are not for using the tools using the machining ok so we did talk about the training that you do help with job placement in the help that you offer do you assist with creating resumes and that type of thing or is it just you make a phone call and you know we do a lot of credit counseling and career coaching and just you know explaining to people what they're going to anticipate the job is going to look like so we have a lot of staff members from manufacturing plant here in peter's actually and you mentioned that there are several of them in washington county so someone who's a local resident might find that they can stay here and not  after of course they get their six or eight weeks of training earlier you and i were talking about a maker space and some things that students could do if they were not sure that this was if they if they're not sure if you're not sure in you you want to go when you want to learn a little bit more about a bit you may not necessarily be ready to commit to that program or that six week program what other types of things do you have for somebody to come check absolutely so we opened a maker space and it's use their hands and explore with building and then going back to the maker to manufacturing movement or helping the old potentially strengthen a pipeline of people interested in factoring so our maker space is by no means the answer to the  calls last year but is a really good solution to having a community based maker space that's free and has a low cost classes so you just want people to come and have so anybody from anyone any age range high school kids really a testament to the strength and community that it has and what the strategic plan of the university of pittsburgh is about you know strengthening this product community and connecting people a job so it's it's a it's a very good program it's free media classes things that would give you an idea of whether or not you think you might like something but we do recommend that no matter where you're going if you're going directly into the workforce or if you're going into a you know four year college or a trade school or the military or wherever it is that you might be going to certification program you still have to know how i think you still have to be a critical thinker and our a p classes offer those opportunities not that our our other ones do as well our honors and our academics but  the most challenge that we offer through the advanced placement courses but certainly don't need to take one of those to come into one of your programs that you're talking about for manufacturing but we always challenge students you have to challenge yourself to always be growing in always learning and stretching your brain but if i if i've never taken one of those a p classes or an even honors class it sounds like i can still find a place in manufacturing yeah that would be equally rewarding so the main thing is that if you're interested in manufacturing you should be somebody who enjoys working with your hands and seeing the finished product you should enjoy fooling around with i shouldn't say full of rhetoric but playing with things like the two pieces that you brought in today  and seeing those come to fruition that's that sounds like a lot of students that i know not everybody fine not everybody wants to go on to a four year college and not everybody is  opportunity it could be something that you do over the summer prior to moving on to a four year degree if you that's where you're going or if you're going to the military or to another trade or tech school you can certainly do either of those so that's about it for our show today and there is a future and it is coming that's the name of our show there is a future and it is coming and i am judy alexander and i will see you the next time