May 6th, 2016
Nearly 140 people gathered Thursday night at the Jackson Country Club to celebrate a significant milestone. The first Advanced Maintenance Technician (AMT) cohort will receive applied associate degrees in industrial technology on Saturday, May 7.
"This is a big night for both our students and for everyone here tonight," said Terri Messer, dean of business and industry. "When we were first recruiting students for this cohort in 2014, we didn't know if we would be able to get 20 students to apply. We have 20 receiving degrees this weekend."
Of the 20 graduates, 18 are currently employed. Two members of the class have job interviews scheduled and also plan to transfer to 4-year degree programs.
Area human resource professional Ben Ferguson was the keynote speaker for the event. Ferguson commended the graduates on the "smart" choice they made to pursue and complete this valuable training. Ferguson advised the graduates that they would be able to take the skills they have learned over the past couple of years and go directly into the workforce with a great paying job with little or no debt.
Ferguson continued with advice to the graduates with a humorous list of the top 10 things "not to do" to be successful in their new careers. This included a number of extraordinary situations he has encountered over his 10-year experience in leading Personnel Placements.
AMT was begun as a way to encourage graduating high school seniors to pursue careers in the manufacturing sector and to generate much-needed skilled labor for area manufacturers. JSCC has a long-standing reputation of working with area businesses to develop a skilled workforce to meet their needs.
For the first round of AMT, 17 area manufacturers developed a consortium with the college in which the AMT students would work and acquire on-the-job experience while working on their degrees at JSCC. In the arrangement, students work 3 days a week and attend classes 2 days a week. They also begin the program earning $12 an hour on a graduated scale to $14 an hour by the end of the program.
Jason Bates, administrative manager at consortium member TOYOTA|Bodine Aluminum, Inc., has commented that during the economic slowdown over the past several years, individuals who have had the technical training and expertise to maintain manufacturing operations have had no unemployment issues. According to Bates, "the number-one unfilled job opening during the 'Great Recession' was skilled technicians." What is worse, there are not enough people being trained or seeking to be trained to fill these positions.
"The AMT Program offers participants a great opportunity to earn an AAS degree, to get their foot in the door of area manufacturers, get trained at a high-tech job, and to get paid while doing it. This is a bold new approach at how we educate the workforce of tomorrow," says Messer.
Additional information about the admissions process and an application for the AMT program can be found at www.jscc.edu/amt or by contacting Cathi Roberts at 731-425-9584 or emailing her at croberts7@jscc.edu.