New apprenticeship program to meet demand for skilled workers

The Alcoa Foundation has donated $100,000 to launch an apprenticeship program at Trident Technical College that will train industrial and engineering technicians.

The program will launch next semester and offer classroom training in addition to work experience at 10 local companies, said Chris Lang, the school’s dean for industrial and engineering technology.

“It’s sort of a circumstance of industries growing their own skilled workers,” Lang said. “These will be students who are either long-standing employees with these companies who are looking to move into other job areas to hopefully make more money, or they could be fairly new employees who lack some of the skills that are necessary. All of them are industry-sponsored.”

Apprenticeships are federally regulated through the U.S. Department of Labor and are offered for about 850 different jobs.

South Carolina has only 850 registered apprentices compared with 16,000 in North Carolina and more than 10,000 in Georgia.

Kim Sturgeon, TTC’s assistant vice president of advancement, said apprenticeship programs cost less in those states because both states have apprenticeship councils that assist in funding.

“South Carolina does not currently have a state apprenticeship council, so the burden for funding students in apprenticeship programs falls to the industry,” Sturgeon said.

Sturgeon said about $75,000 of the Alcoa donation will go toward equipping new labs at TTC as well as for course development, promotion and administration of the program.

“The Alcoa Foundation is very interested in this model being replicable across the nation,” Sturgeon said. “There is a nationwide need for electrical and mechanical technicians.”

Pierce McNair, executive assistant for external affairs for the South Carolina Technical College System, said the word hasn’t gotten out about the benefits of apprenticeships.

“We want to educate businesses in the state on the value of registered apprenticeships and why they’re so valuable in developing strong work forces, both in existing businesses and businesses that would like to relocate in South Carolina,” McNair said. “It’s a huge win for both the students and for the businesses.”

Apprentices work four days and attend class on the fifth day. They are usually paid more than $8 an hour, but can earn nearly double that or more after they complete the four-year program.

“We already have a great relationship with the business community,” McNair said. “If we can build on that and have the students attend class at tech [colleges] and then go over to the business and work in job training apprenticeships, that would be a perfect marriage.”

The 16 technical colleges across the state served 237,093 South Carolinians last year, including 107,087 full-time students, 132,299 continuing education students and 5,178 pre-employment work force training students.