NORTH KINGSTOWN -- The bend test is brutal. The welded strips can
look flawless, smooth and shiny. They can bend perfectly in one
direction. Then you bend a strip the other way, and it snaps.
Better a test strip, of course, than a submarine.
Since March, men and women aspiring to weld ships, barges and submarines
at Quonset Point-based firms such as Electric Boat, Southeastern New
England Shipbuilding Corp., or SENESCO, and the Lightship Group have
been learning the trade -- and testing and retesting their skills -- at
a new training center set up by the Community College of Rhode Island
inside the industrial park.
CCRI hired Frank L. McCann, manager of Ocean State Testing Inc., which
tests welders' work for local companies, to create a program that would
turn novices into attractive hires for Quonset's tenants.
Because the plants do different types of welding -- Electric Boat uses
the pulse-core method, for example, while SENESCO does flux-core welding
-- CCRI decided to stick with the basics, so graduates could take jobs
anywhere, and then get specialized training from their employers, or
through follow-up courses to be offered by CCRI.
"We built a curriculum based on the needs of the employers," said Robert
Delaney, director of CCRI's Center for Business and Industrial Training,
which set up the program. "There is a huge demand for welders, and what
CCRI is offering are pre-screened, high-quality people."
CCRI HAS LONG had relationships with employers at Quonset
Point-Davisville -- especially with Electric Boat, with which it has a
partnership to offer on-site classes for 59 workers pursuing associate's
degrees.
But last December, after a survey by the college and the state Economic
Development Corporation found an overwhelming need for job training
among the industrial park's 127 tenants, CCRI decided to step up its
efforts.
Electric Boat, Quonset's biggest employer, planned to hire 125 welders,
and wanted CCRI to train them. Other companies wanted computer courses,
literacy and English-as-a-second-language courses, and special training
in quality management.
CCRI President Thomas D. Sepe proposed to set up a center within Quonset
that would cater to the companies' needs. Working around the clock, he
figured, the school could train nearly 900 people in the first year
alone. And because employers and government job-training programs would
cover the costs, CCRI wouldn't have to dip into its own budget. Even in
the first year, CCRI estimated that revenues would exceed $955,000, with
a net profit of $90,900.
The Economic Development Corporation heartily endorsed the plan, and the
state Board of Governors for Higher Education, which oversees CCRI, also
gave it a green light.
Knowing that many companies wanted services right away, Sepe tried to
fast-track the project. But the State Properties Committee questioned
CCRI's selection of a building in Quonset that college officials said
was the only viable site.
And even after those concerns were allayed, in January, the committee
held off approving the proposed lease, requesting detailed electrical,
structural and architectural drawings from the contractor that property
owner Mary Emerson had chosen to renovate the building.
Emerson wouldn't cover the $18,000 cost of the drawings without a
guarantee that CCRI would sign a lease, and the State Properties
Committee wouldn't grant the lease without the drawings, so last month,
Sepe paid the bill with CCRI money.
Delaney said he expects the plans to be ready by the committee's meeting
next week. If CCRI gets approval to sign a lease, the center could open
in June -- five months later than Sepe had hoped.
By then, CCRI expects to be graduating its second class of welders.
THE COLLEGE set up the welding program at Ocean State Testing in March,
after Electric Boat officials asked the Workforce Partnership of Greater
Rhode Island, which runs one-stop job centers with the state, to sponsor
students in the new CCRI program.
The starting pay for welders at Quonset is about $12 to $14 an hour,
Delaney said, much better than what most clients of the one-stop job
centers earn. The partnership and the Providence/Cranston Workforce
Development Board -- another one-stop job-center partner -- agreed to
provide federal-funded vouchers to cover the $1,900 tuition, stipulating
only that students wouldn't be trained specifically for Electric Boat,
but for any company that needed welders.
To recruit the first class, the two agencies and the EDC began what was
to be a six-week advertising campaign. They stopped after four days,
Delaney said, already flooded with 160 applications.
Ken Johnson, 28, of South Kingstown, was at Quonset Point to interview
for a job, saw a sign outside Ocean State Testing, and went in.
"I've done this type of stuff before, and I figured I had the time, I
could take the class -- why not?" he said.
Diane Suzzi, 38, of Jamestown, had been running her own business,
selling underground dog fencing.
"I was looking for a new career opportunity," she said. "I like working
with my hands; I like mechanical work, and this seemed like a good
program. It was a whole new direction I'd never considered before."
Many people try to learn welding, but few stick with it for long --
company-sponsored programs routinely lose as many as half their
recruits, Delaney said. To try to avoid that kind of attrition, CCRI
developed standards for the one-stop job centers to use in evaluating
candidates. They gave them an online skills assessment, in which they
had to score at least 50 percent.
Applicants also had to have ninth-grade math and literacy skills; for
those who didn't, the Human Resources Investment Council allowed CCRI to
use a special grant to offer an accelerated literacy course to help them
catch up.
The first 12 students, including Suzzi and Johnson, started in early
March, half in the day shift, half in the evening. Five days a week, for
eight weeks, they spent an hour in the classroom and four hours in
welding booths custom-made by McCann to mirror the training stations at
Electric Boat. Their teachers were seasoned welders from the Quonset
plants.
As the apprentices finished their welds, they took the bend test,
watching anxiously as the fruit of their labor was squeezed into a
horseshoe shape to ensure the metal was perfectly bound. As they passed,
their bent work samples were posted on a board with their names, for
recruiters to inspect.
Two students quit early on, and were replaced. But on May 3, a full
dozen welders completed the program. Their official graduation is
Wednesday at the EDC. Meanwhile, a new group of 16 has arrived.
Several of the graduates already have jobs, and McCann expects them all
to be working soon. Suzzi and a classmate did particularly well: they're
going to the PG&E Corp., a utility company, where they'll earn about $20
an hour.
"It's been great, a real learning experience," Suzzi said.
Never having welded before, she now knows the sizzling sound a welding
stick makes when it's just at the right distance from the metal, and the
weaving motion that she needs to do a good vertical weld.
"It's important to have specific job skills that you can build on," she
said. "It's nice to have companies coming to see us, rather than going
knocking on doors, looking for something."
