Machine learning

It all started when Tony Myers began asking some basic questions—first about his company’s workforce, then about how nearby schools were educating kids. The answers he got set off a chain of events that eventually put him and his firm at the forefront of an effort aimed at teaching local high school students about technologies employed by area businesses. The result was the creation of a broadly backed program that has opened up new career paths for students and provided Myers’ company and others with some well-trained young workers.

Myers is vice president of human resources at U.S. Tool Group in Farmington, Missouri. Billing itself as the largest cutting tool reconditioner in the world, the company operates a 250,000 sq. ft. manufacturing center where hundreds of reconditioning specialists process more than half a million tools each week using dozens of grinding machines and other types of equipment.

Myers’ story of the industrial program begins with a troubling conversation he had several years ago with his company’s plant manager. Asked how job candidates were evaluated, the manager told him that one way was to ask if they tinkered with their cars.

“That concerned me a little bit,” he recalled. “We resharpen cutting tools, and nobody around here has ever used the equipment or worked with the tools and other things that we have. So our evaluating and training program needs to be pretty good.”

Myers’ level of concern was elevated when, during subsequent conversations with local high school teachers and administrators, he discovered that students graduated from the schools with no marketable skill set. This was because the schools were entirely focused on preparing their students for college. But when Myers asked how many of the students actually go to college, the answer he got was about 60%. What’s more, the educators estimated that only about a third of those students ended up getting bachelor’s degrees.

Students visit a manufacturer of plastic fixtures. Image courtesy of U.S. Tool Group

The bottom line Myers delivered to the educators was stark: “I said, ‘So your (only) track is college, but only 20% of the students are achieving a bachelor’s degree, and the other 80% are screwed.'”

After these discussions, Myers organized a meeting at U.S. Tool to address the situation. The meeting included administrators from all the school districts in the region, as well as a couple of elected officials and representatives of the local community college, the vocational school and a handful of area businesses. At this meeting and several others that followed, a number of important facts emerged. Among these: none of the high schools represented had industrial arts or technical education programs, and the schools were funded to prepare students for college and measured solely on that basis. The school administrators also acknowledged that as many as half their students might be interested in careers that don’t require a bachelor’s degree, but they stressed that there was no money to set up programs for these students.

Partnership Launched

So in 2019, the Industry and Education Partnership was launched. “This jelled unbelievably, with buy-in from the entire community,” Myers said, adding that 80 to 100 people attend the partnership’s quarterly meetings. “All the school districts and multiple companies send people. State reps, senators, city administrators, people from our industrial development authorities and chambers of commerce, they all come.”

According to Myers, 15 companies are currently involved in the program, with membership limited to industrial firms. Primarily, these companies donate equipment and tools to area schools for technical training purposes, as well as instruction time and help with curriculum development. For example, he pointed out that one company donated welders to four school districts that wanted them. “The company said, ‘Take this welder and then let’s partner together, and we can help you to design your welding curriculum so it’s very practical,'” he noted.

Today, all 13 school districts in the Farmington area offer industrial education courses. In addition to welding, area students are getting training in fields such as auto repair, carpentry and electrical technology. They’re also learning how to use a variety of different tools and machines, including those deployed in U.S. Tool’s plant.