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W O R K F O R M E / S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 42 M a n u f a c t u r i n g of thing someone can just walk into a shop and start doing. He also recommended that students gain computer literacy, as work- ing with computers has become a big part of the job. One of the benefits of working at a contract manufacturer such as Kennebec Technologies is that the products they make are always changing, Bubar says. "You never know what you're going to be doing, and that's the fun part of it," he says. Jobs for everyone Richard Bolding, the CMCC chair, says the job placement rate is over 95% for graduates of the college's precision machining program. Students can go on to work in automotive, aerospace, defense, even furniture-making. "I have a student that gradu- ated three years ago, and he's now down in North Carolina making parts for the Penske race cars," he says. "There's many differ- ent avenues that people can take within our program." Still, the profession remains a bit of a hidden gem, accord- ing to Bolding. Not many people understand what it means to be a machinist unless a parent or someone else they know is in- volved in the profession. Another barrier to making machining more widely known to students is the secretive nature of some of the work, which is often propri- etary or even classified. "Of my seniors who are grad- uating in May, I would say about half of them already have jobs lined up," Bolding says. "Some of them are already working. By the end of the semester, the ones that don't have a job don't want a job." Isaac Bolduc, plant manager at Maine Machine Products Co. in South Paris, says group dis- cussions among his colleagues often turn to the question of how to attract more young people to the profession. Maine Machine Products has about 175 employees and manufactures parts primar- ily for aerospace, defense and medical applications. The company usually offers to pay community college tuition for its young workers, but tuition is currently free for all Maine high school graduates of 2020 through at least this year, thanks to a $20 million allocation from the state's general fund. Schol- arships have been a longtime component of Maine Machine Products' recruitment strategy, along with apprenticeship and internship programs. "We've got people retiring here this summer that were s c h o l a r s h i p s t u d e n t s , a n d they've been here almost 40 years," Bolduc says. Welding is another manu- facturing profession that is in dire need of young workers — both in Maine and nationally, says Forrest Stone, a welding instructor at CMCC. To help meet the projected need for 5,000 more welders in Maine over the next 10 years, CMCC opened a new welding lab in November with a nearly $1 million grant from the Harold Alfond Center for the Advance- ment of Maine's Workforce. Demand for welders is grow- ing "at a lightning rate," he says, as more and more manufactur- ing businesses are relocating to Maine at the same time a large number of older, highly skilled welders are retiring. Many of them had continued to work until well beyond age 65, Stone says. Welding is a diverse profes- sion that offers a lot of special- ization and variety, he says, in addition to excellent pay and job security. "It encapsulates all manu- facturing, from the microscopic and scientific to heavy indus- try and bridge-building," Stone says. "There's probably a niche for everyone." n 1 , 2 0 0 w o r k e r s i n 9 m o n t h s : A n e p i c s wa b s t o ry H olly Lancaster, director of recruiting at KMA Human Resources Consulting LLC in Fal- mouth, recalls how her firm was tasked with rapidly growing Pittsfield-based manufacturer Puritan Medical Products' workforce in 2020 to make medical swabs for the COVID-19 pandemic: "Our work with Puritan didn't start out as mo- mentously as it ended up being. Like all things during the pandemic, no one knew what was coming. As the need for the swabs increased, so did the need to hire more employees for the plants in Pittsfield. KMA was able to build a strong recruitment strategy with Puritan, working with their internal HR and marketing teams to promote their employment opportunities. "At the time, not many people wanted to physi- cally go into work, but we were able to share the story of the important work Puritan was doing and how it was an opportunity to meet a historic moment. We were able to engage candidates and get them moving through the screening and interview process. "The balance of managing the urgent work- force need with scheduling the training and onboarding of the new hires was an important part of our communication and expectations with both Puritan and the candidates. In the end, we hired over 1,200 people to work in the Pittsfield locations over the course of nine months, which was a first in both volume and speed for KMA's recruiting team." n « C O N T I N U E D F R O M P R E V I O U S PAG E F I L E P H O T O / T I M G R E E N W A Y Holly Lancaster Micrometers in Ethan Bubar's toolbox at Kennebec Technologies in Augusta. P H O T O / F R E D F I E L D

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