Educators hope to attract more adult students to free machining courses

When Ken Pedder was in high school, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do as a career.

“I really had no direction or plans,” Pedder said.

Eventually, he applied to Central Westmoreland Career & Technology Center. He was looking to follow somewhat in the footsteps of his father, a journeyman toolmaker who worked at Penn State Tool & Die Corp., where Pedder eventually went to work with his father as his boss.

“Don’t go to work for your father,” he said with a laugh.

It paid off, though, and Pedder is now paying it forward.

After more than two decades in the industry, Pedder, 53, of Greensburg began teaching at Eastern Westmoreland Career & Technology Center in Derry Township in 2004. He still teaches CTC classes, but also is part of an evening class, “Manufacturing 2000,” which offers a free grant-funded machining course through Pittsburgh nonprofit New Century Careers.

“We offer a state-registered pre-apprenticeship program,” said New Century Careers President and CEO Neil Ashbaugh, who worked in the manufacturing industry for two decades at Oberg Industries in Buffalo Township, Butler County. “Over the years, we stopped offering the class at the CTCs and built a facility on Pittsburgh’s South Side. That became our main training site, but we were able to secure some additional funding and re-initiated that program (at the CTC).”

The class, first offered in 1997, takes place year-round at both the NCC training facility in Pittsburgh and at Eastern Westmoreland CTC in Derry Township. Eastern Westmoreland Administrative Director Todd Weimer said he couldn’t be happier to have the class back.

“It’s unbelievable that you can get some level of post-secondary training absolutely free and, through the process, you’re immediately employable,” he said.

Class participants can earn a variety of National Institute of Metalworking Skills credentials and don’t need prior experience in manufacturing.

“Many of our adult students might be in hospitality or food service, or maybe they worked in a big-box store,” Ashbaugh said. “And they realize you can only go so far with those careers. This can help students earn credentials and have an opportunity to build a portfolio and resumé.”

Below, Pedder talks about the class.

Pedder agreed that anyone looking to make a career change — particularly if they’ve found themselves out of work during the covid-19 pandemic — could do so easily through the course.

“We get a lot of people who have gone to college and dropped out,” he said. “People don’t finish, or they graduate with a liberal arts degree and they need something that will make them more than a minimum-wage job.”

Job demand is high, according to Weimer.

“It’s unfortunate that we don’t have as many students in our day program, because that’s free to them as part of their high-school education,” he said. “But Ken knows the demand firsthand. It’s not rare for us to have 10 or 12 seniors in our programs, and we have local employers lining up for them.”

Pedder and other Eastern Westmoreland instructors are prepping for high-school classes to start back up this month.

“This upcoming school year, we expect to have nine seniors in our program,” Weimer said. “But we could have fifteen, and they could all expect to have a job right out of high school.”

And if they decide to wait to pursue a skilled-trade education, they likely could still land a job after completing the Manufacturing 2000 course.

“Students get a variety of experiences. That’s the beauty of the program,” Pedder said. “You can sort of go in any direction you want to go.”

For more on the Manufacturing 2000 class, see NCsquared.com.