Indiana high schools teach molding/moldmaking skills

Five years ago, the citizens of Evansville, IN passed an initiative to build a new vocational-technical center in that town, and bring all the various classes throughout the area under one roof. The result was the 245,000-ft² Southern Indiana Career & Technical Center (SICTC). Not only did voters give the school the money for the building, they also gave it a half-million dollars to buy equipment, an important factor in training young people in today’s manufacturing skills.
  
James Stock is the plastics molding instructor at the SICTC, and his equipment includes an all-electric 110-ton press and a hydraulic 225-tonner with a robotic arm, both from Milacron. Also purchased from Milacron is a 2.5-inch extruder. The school chose Milacron because the company is relatively close to the school—Milacron is located near Cincinnati, OH—and the company made a commitment to the school to help them out with maintenance, set-up, and needed repairs, said Stock.
   
“I’m trying to give these students real-world work experience,” said Stock. “I’m trying to prepare them to do maintenance work, machine set-up, and experience with running molding machines.” The two-year program also provides classes in blueprint reading, and working with lathes, surface grinders, and mills.
   
The Plastics Molding Center also has a testing laboratory with a color spectrometer, impact-, and tensile-strength testers.
   
The program is for high school juniors and seniors, and consists of three hours per day at the Technical Center performing hands-on work. Stock said that this year he has a total of about 35 students, 20 seniors and 15 juniors. He notes that there are two girls in his class this year who are “just excellent” at mechanical skills.
   
Attracting students into the program isn’t always easy. “It’s hard to explain to these kids the advantages of learning these skills, but once they get here, they love it,” Stock explained.
  
Jobs await those students who complete the program. Stock said that Wabash Plastics, a custom injection molder and moldmaker, with 50 presses ranging from 165-1000 tons, hires students from the Tech Center. Berry Plastics, with headquarters in Evansville, also hires students from the program, some of them while they are still in the program. “Berry is getting ready to hire six or seven students currently,” Stock said. “We have a good working relationship with all the plastics industries here in the area.”

A few students decide to go on to college, and Stock noted that “several” of his senior students are going to Vincennes University and Ball State to pursue more advanced manufacturing degrees. “The state of Indiana says these are high-demand jobs and my students who want a job can get a job,” said Stock.

James Niehaus is the precision machine technology instructor at the Southern Indiana Career & Technical Center. His program is also for high school juniors and seniors. “We take new students and begin working on the fundamentals of machining such as measuring—how to measure using equipment from rulers to calipers, micrometers, indicators, CMMs, and optical comparators,” said Niehaus. “We instill in them that the only way to know something is right is to measure it. In the machining world you have to check and see if what you do is right. At the same time they learn to run machines—both manual and computer-assisted machines.”
   
Niehaus said the program offers a combination of many of the basic machining techniques during the first semester such as running machines, measuring, safety practices, and the fundamentals of machining metals. Currently, Niehaus has 39 students divided in two classes of three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon.

“As the program progresses, the projects get more difficult,” Niehaus explained.  “We start with introductory projects, then get more advanced until we go to a live project. Currently, my students are building an injection mold to mold a coaster that Jim Stock will run in his class.”

Last year Niehaus’s class made a keychain mold with the school logo on it. “We’ve built a mold for a small Frisbee and a coat hanger mold,” he added. “We’re in the process of making a metal-stamping die for sheet metal as well. By doing these various things in the trade the kids get exposure to what they need in the real world.”

The Southern Indiana Career & Technical Center is fortunate. Unlike a lot of tech centers who get stuck with older, outdated equipment, the SICTC has “fairly new machinery” noted Niehaus. “That’s largely because it’s a new school and when they built the building, they got enough money to get the machinery we needed as well.”

Niehaus’ program currently has seven computer-controlled mills and lathes, eight computer-assisted lathes, and roughly 20-25 more pieces of machinery have digital readouts on them to help students understand computer-aided and computer-controlled machining.
   
During the second semester of their senior year, the students can choose to work rather than come to class, but they must work at least three hours, five days a week. They get paid by their employers, and typically that leads to full-time employment.
   
“We also work with Berry and Wabash and I’ve placed students with a number of smaller companies in the area including smaller moldmakers and machine shops,” said Niehaus. “I’ve placed kids in three-fourths of the machine shops in the area in the 14 years I’ve been teaching.”
   
Shawn McGrew, owner of Prodigy Mold & Tool Inc. in Haubstadt, IN, hired one of the students from the Tech Center. “He’s a real hands-on guy and has become a key employee over the seven or eight years he’s worked here,” said McGrew. “He had some natural talent and it migrated into this field, and we’re fortunate to have him.”

McGrew and Niehaus used to work together at a mold shop, but Niehaus felt the call to become a teacher. McGrew believes that it’s the industry’s responsibility to help these teachers and the schools in their effort to produce the next generation of skilled workers. “It’s good that these technical schools are doing what they’re doing, but I think it’s time for shops like ours to step up and help these educational facilities keep up to date with technology and keep teachers up to date, too, with the changes in our industry,” said McGrew. 

McGrew said that shops in the U.S. need to begin working with these educational institutions and help recruit young kids through their parents and school guidance counselors, many of who know very little about the job opportunities available in manufacturing. “There seems to be a dwindling supply of young people and if I don’t start recruiting new, young talent so that my experienced guys can teach the younger guys, we’re going to be out of talent in another generation,” McGrew said. “I think it’s time we stop thinking that someone else will do this for us, and make some sacrifices of our time and talents for the future of our businesses. We need to try to educate these schools and do what we can do to help grow these kids and expose them to our trade and at least create the awareness of what moldmaking offers.”
   
McGrew will be attending an open house at the Southern Indiana Career & Technical Center, and taking some of the apprenticeship brochures that the American Mold Builders Assn. produces to teach the students what’s current with respect to moldmaking. “We have to all make some kind of an investment in our futures,” said McGrew, who will also be showing a core and cavity half, and the part that it molds, so attendees at the open house can better understand moldmaking.  “We can’t rely on the other guy to do it. If people see some finished pieces of steel and some parts—they might think twice about this as a career. It’s important to me. It’s important to this country. Manufacturing—our ability to make things—is what made this country great. Even in the political arena they’re starting to realize what manufacturing contributes to this country, to this economy.” —Clare Goldsberry