Companies Seek Technical Training to Fill Skilled Jobs

“The people of Western Arkansas have given you a great tool. What you do with it is entirely in your hands.”

Chancellor Joel Stubblefield’s words are embedded in brass on the outside wall of the Baldor Technology Center at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.

After a $2 million gift to UAFS, the 66,000-SF, $11.5 million building was named for Fort Smith’s Baldor Electric Co. In return, the company, which makes electric motors, has received a pool of qualified students to choose from, along with a place to send employees for training.

It’s a symbiotic relationship that enhances technical training in the River Valley while benefiting companies there. The same thing is going on at Northwest Technical Institute in Springdale.

UAFS and NTI offer programs so students can learn technical skills that are valuable to area companies. After receiving a technical diploma, certificate or an associate degree, students can earn a salary that sometimes rivals that of a four-year college degree.

Paying for the Skill

Salary for many of the technical degrees varies depending on demand, even between Northwest Arkansas and Fort Smith.

In Northwest Arkansas, the median salary for an electrical engineer in 2003 was $42,800, while in Fort Smith it was $34,100, according to America’s Career InfoNet, which tracks salaries nationwide.

At the same time, network and computer systems administrators earned a median salary of $33,900 in Northwest Arkansas and $40,100 in Fort Smith. To compare, accountants with a four-year degree averaged $37,100 in Northwest Arkansas and $37,300 in Fort Smith.

Mat Pitsch, dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology at UAFS, said the amount of pay depends on the type of skill that someone has and demand for workers with that skill.

“The basic premise … is if most people can’t do what you can do, your salary tends to be higher,” Pitsch said. “It’s a supply and demand deal. There aren’t a whole lot of people that can walk in and weld. That’s a skill set.”

Those skills are why companies work so closely with the schools. Companies in the River Valley and Northwest Arkansas make up an advisory board that provides the schools feedback regarding programs. They can help mold a program, like the one that uses $2.5 million worth of equipment in the Baldor Technology Center, and then get to choose from the cream of the crop.

Baldor, a public company, hires students with certificates and those working on their certification. Wayne Thurman, the company’s vice president of engineering, said Baldor hires electrical and mechanical engineers from UAFS. Students with degrees in computer-aided drafting and design work in motor mechanical design and drafting projects at Baldor.

Thurman said that although Baldor has a representative on Fort Smith’s Manufacturers Executive Association advisory board, Baldor doesn’t ask UAFS to cater its academic programs to the company’s needs.

Some companies, like Whirlpool Corp. in Fort Smith, use the schools to train its employees. The company pays for tuition and then also compensates the employee depending on the certificates they receive.

“We utilize UAFS to help facilitate our apprentice programs for our skill trades,” said Gina Smithson, employee relations administrator for Whirlpool. “We use them as our supplemental and educational training, any training that’s not on the job training.”

Smithson said Whirlpool, which is unionized, uses UAFS for certification of electricians, toolmakers and maintenance mechanics. About 25 employees are enrolled every semester. From the time they start to the time they complete the four-year certification courses, their salaries will have increased 15 percent to 20 percent, although she wouldn’t say how much that is in dollars.

NTI doesn’t offer associate degrees, but it does offer 12 diploma programs. The certification courses, offered during the day, range from two months for truck driving to 18 months for diesel and truck technology. Students go full-time, which is the reason for short programs.

“The thing we’re famous for is our 11-month program,” said George Burch, director of NTI. “You can get an entry-level job in 11 months of training. That’s our mission.”

The programs, although short, are designed to be centered on the skill trade, but they do require at least one English and one math class. That is the difference between the associate degree, which has a few more liberal arts, English and science classes than the certification programs. The school has an 80 percent placement rating.

Health Care Demand

“The technical field is just so open,” said Nina Mire, a counselor at NTI. “Opportunities abound for people in the technical field. It’s a nationwide shortage really.”

One of those shortages falls into the health care industry. Registered nurses and dental hygienists are in high demand, according to America’s Career InfoNet. RNs topped the list of occupations with the most job openings in Arkansas in 2003. Next were LPNs, and at No. 10 were dental hygienists.

RNs earned a median salary of $44,900 in Northwest Arkansas while in Fort Smith they made $40,600. The widest disparity was among dental hygienists, who earned $47,100 in Northwest Arkansas and $61,000 in Fort Smith.

Brenda Mitchell, dean of the College of Health Sciences at UAFS, said the two-year dental hygiene program is very competitive. It is one of only two such programs offered in the state, the other being at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. Every year, 85 to 90 students apply but only 16 are admitted to the Program, Mitchell said. The school is also a working clinic, having about 1,000 to 1,500 patients a year.

Mitchell said there are about 1,100 students enrolled in the College of Health Sciences, which is up 5 percent over the past few years. The associate degree in nursing is the largest program in the college. There are about 175 students currently enrolled. Twice a year, there are 30 to 50 graduates. Those graduates also have 100 percent placement.

“When they graduate they are immediately placed,” Mitchell said. “We have a lot of openings in the community for practical nurses.”

Deb Moore, division chair of Nursing and Allied Health at NTI, said LPN jobs are “by far the most sought after” in the area by employers. NTI has 72 students in the nursing program and more than a 90 percent passage rating. There is also a surgical technician program that is 11 months long.

UAFS offers a two-year surgical technician degree, a two-year radiography degree and a one-year LPN degree. Mitchell said there have been 27,000 graduates since the health care program’s inception in 1969.

The College of Health Sciences moved into the 66,000-SF Pendergraft Health Sciences Center last fall. The building cost $9.5 million to build and has $2.7 million worth of equipment, including an operating room, intensive care unit lab with a simulated man that can be programmed to perform certain scenarios and a birthing center with a simulated woman and baby.

Technology’s Future

Technical degrees often see many non-traditional students — students who did not go to college right out of high school. Mire said the average student at NTI is 25- to 35-years-old, and about 20 percent of them are right out of high school.

“I do most of our recruiting at the high school and college career fairs,” Mire said. “We do have a fair amount of high school graduates.”

The school also works with displaced workers whose company either had a significant layoff or shut down operations in Northwest Arkansas, like the Levi Strauss & Co. manufacturing facility in Fayetteville that shut down in 1999.

Those workers usually go to NTI to get a different skill or increase their knowledge about a skill.

UAFS has been known to have many non-traditional students. Unofficial fall enrollment had 3,451 students ages 21 and under and 3,346 students ages 21 and over.

Pitsch said although enrollment numbers have been down for students coming out of high school, electronics had a 32.8 percent increase, CADD was up 25.5 percent and welding and automotive was up 17.5 percent.