Hartford Business Journal

10 Hartford Business Journal • March 23, 2020 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Sean Teehan steehan@hartfordbusiness.com O ver the past year, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) held events at Wallingford Public Schools, Tunxis Com- munity College and Goodwin University. But these weren't events to advise retirees about continuing education programs available to seniors look- ing to remain active after capping off their professional careers. They were recruiting sessions in search of people who can help fill a void in qualified instructors for manufacturing education programs. While much talk in recent years has been about a workforce pipeline shortage, it turns out the state also lacks enough instructors to teach a growing number of manufacturing training programs at technical high schools, community colleges and other educational institutions. That's more concern for a state that is projected to lose 20% of its manufacturing workforce to retire- ment over the next four years. "The state of Connecticut needs to be in a unified march toward increasing manufacturing workers in this state, or we are on a course for economic failure," said Nora Duncan, AARP's Con- necticut state director who is work- ing with state and private education institutions on finding manufacturing instructors in her association's mem- ber pool. "The manufacturing industry, especially the big guys, could be dig- ging into their retirees." Connecticut state lawmakers have been mulling a bill aimed at addressing the instructor shortage. It would give tax credits to manu- facturing companies that provide employees who can serve as instruc- tors for education programs. But that likely won't be a cure-all as the need for new workers and training programs increases in the coming years, experts said. Some industry officials say other changes need to be made, including relaxing certain teacher-certifica- tion requirements to allow more people to teach at technical and traditional high schools. Some lawmakers also want to start a pilot expanding advanced manufacturing certificate programs at public high schools, which would require even more educators. "Unfortunately, we are not even coming close to having enough teachers to fill the current classes we are running," Tracy Ariel, director of manufacturing education at Manches- ter and Middlesex community colleges, said in written testimony related to the proposed employer tax-credit legisla- tion. "Our hope is to not just sustain but get our programs to capacity in an attempt to try to meet those upcoming employment projections." Manchester and Middlesex col- lectively have about a dozen part- time and full-time manufacturing instructors, but public and private schools at the college and secondary school level are currently working at capacity to meet industry needs, Ariel said in an interview. She said an instructor tax credit could help demonstrate to private companies that industry and educa- tion institutions can work closely together on workforce issues. "I think that it's necessary to say this is a partnership, and this is how we can give on both sides," Ariel said. "It's an incredible amount of need. … We are working really hard to try to get to that need." Enfield's Asnuntuck Community College, which has a 50,000-square- foot facility dedicated to manufactur- ing education, currently has about 25 manufacturing instructors, said James Lombella, president of Asnun- tuck and Tunxis community colleges. Based on student interest in manufacturing programs, he said they could double enrollment in these courses, and Tunxis is cur- rently renovating a recently pur- chased 10,000-square-foot building in Farmington into manufacturing education space. "As we continue to grow over Teacher Gap Instructor shortage slows CT's ability to launch new manufacturing training programs FOCUS: MANUFACTURING A teacher instructs a student in a manufacturing class at Goodwin University. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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