Dear Editor,
I forwarded your excellent editorial in the December 2012 TBB to Roger Sustar. Roger owns a machine shop in the Cleveland OH area and has been saying for over 10 years that the education system is messed up in our country insomuch that many highly paid, technical jobs do not have enough qualified candidates. So, Roger did something about it. He formed a group called the Alliance for Working Together, or AWT. AWT (www.lakelandcc.edu/academic/engineer/awt/) has linked up with Lakeland Community College and area high schools to promote careers in manufacturing. AWT sponsors a robot competition, Fredon has a cannon-building program, and they have developed a curriculum at Lakeland to help educate the students on the practical skills they need to operate high-tech machinery. AWT has made a tremendous amount of progress, but the nationwide shortage of qualified manufacturing workers remains.
Please feel free to contact Roger if you have any questions or would like to follow up with him for an another article.
Good luck!
Rick Sippola
Chautauqua Consulting