Committed to creating pathways for students to succeed in the trades

Heather Graves

Staff

November 18, 2024

APPLETON – What started as a pilot program in 2021 with three apprentice students in one area of Pierce Manufacturing, Amber Hebbe – senior HR manager for Oshkosh Corporation’s Vocational Segment – said has since grown to more than 40 apprentices across several of the company’s departments.

“We’ve increased our students every year after that,” she said. “From last school year to this school year, we actually increased our students by 80% – which is a huge increase. Right now, we have about 41 youth apprentices, but we’re going to be adding a couple more here within the next month or so, and so that number will increase a little bit.”

Pierce’s efforts to create, maintain and grow its youth apprenticeship (YA) program and manufacturing partnerships within the region and state, Hebbe said, recently brought recognition in the form of awards.

The Appleton-based manufacturer – a subsidiary of Oshkosh Corporation – was recently selected as the recipient of the CESA 6 Youth Apprenticeship Career Pathways Excellence Award.

According to CESA 6, the award recognizes Pierce’s outstanding commitment to providing diverse career opportunities and shaping the next generation of professionals through its Youth Apprenticeship Program.

In addition, Pierce was awarded the Excellence in Manufacturing/K-12 Partnerships Award from the Northeast Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance (NEWMA) – which, according to NEWMA – celebrates Pierce’s continued efforts to strengthen partnerships between the manufacturing industry and education, “providing invaluable opportunities for students and addressing local workforce needs.”

Consistent growth

When Pierce started its apprenticeship program a handful of years ago, Hebbe said it was focused on the company’s manufacturing sector – “so really just assembly.”

“It has grown from there to include a lot of other departments and a lot of other career pathway areas as well,” she said.

Today, Hebbe said Pierce has apprentices placed in its assembly department, as electricians, in its automotive/paint department, materials sector, engineering and training.

“We actually have someone who is over at our Employee Training Center and is getting exposure to that side of the world,” she said.

‘Vying for the same talent’

Looking at today’s workforce, especially in Northeast Wisconsin, Hebbe said companies in the region, including Pierce, are “vying for the same talent.”

According to the National Association of Manufacturers, the manufacturing skills gap in the U.S. is projected to result in 2.1 million unfilled jobs by 2030.

Hebbe said though Pierce team members have made transformative pivots to create efficiencies, the company continues to celebrate 30, 40, and even 50-year anniversaries, which has resulted in a generational shift in the workforce.

“So we’ve been trying to think outside of the box, and trying to do things we haven’t necessarily done in the past,” she said. “One of those things is doing the youth apprenticeship program through the State of Wisconsin.”

By doing that, Hebbe said, Pierce can reach a different generation – the future of Wisconsin’s workforce.

“We’re reaching students that are in high school who wouldn’t normally get to work in a manufacturing environment,” she said.

The uniqueness of Wisconsin’s labor laws in connection with youth apprentices – “we’re a little progressive when it comes to that area” – Hebbe said, students are allowed to do more than what a normal student under the age of 18 would get to do.

“So instead of just, you know, pushing the broom, they get to actually do real work and get exposure to those real jobs,” she said.

The apprenticeship program not only gets Pierce’s name out to the next generation, Hebbe said it shows them the plethora of opportunities that exist in manufacturing.

“Exposing them to all those opportunities and allowing them to think broadly about those opportunities is really important,” she said.

The YA program through CESA 6 – which Hebbe said does a great job at organizing everything – is open to high school juniors and seniors.

The amount of hours students work each week, she said, is dependent on their schedules and interests.

“I would say on average, students work 10-20 hours a week,” she said.

With a school-based and work-based integrated learning focus, Hebbe said student apprentices are required to take at least one class that relates to their youth apprentice career pathway area – “there’s tons of different career pathways.”

At Pierce, Hebbe said apprentices are paired with a full-time employee, or mentor, that supports them through the program.

“It is someone who they can go to with questions – whether it’s on-the-job training questions or just questions in general about career options,” she said.

Even if students already have an area in mind that they’d like to focus their apprenticeship in, as part of the onboarding process, Hebbe said students are “exposed to all different areas of Pierce.”

“As you can imagine, the truck build process is very extensive, and so an assembler isn’t just an assembler – there’s lots of different types of assemblers,” she said. “There’s electricians and painters and material handlers – so on and so forth.”

Exposing students to the vast array of departments and areas of focus, Hebbe said, allows students to broadly think about the opportunities available to them.

“We then take their thoughts and actually place them based on areas that they seem most interested in,” she said.

If that interest changes over the course of a student’s apprenticeship, Hebbe said Pierce is “super flexible with that.”

“If they, let’s say, start in one area and they really want to go check out another area of the company – we are open to that,” she said. “Ideally, we want to expose them to as much as possible, because this is their way of figuring out, ‘What do I want to do with the rest of my life?’ If we can help them explore and give them those opportunities, that’s what we’ll do.”

Hebbe said the path a student takes after they have completed their apprenticeship is completely dependent on their specific goals.

“Maybe they will stay on with us through college,” she said. “Or maybe college isn’t right for them, so we might offer them a full-time opportunity. We actually have students who went to a technical school – Fox Valley Tech College, for example – and we are paying for tuition reimbursement. They’re working for us part-time, they’re going to school full time and we’re paying for their education, which is a really great opportunity for them.”

Recognition

The recent recognitions Pierce has received for its youth apprenticeship program and manufacturing partnerships, Hebbe said, “honestly, means a lot.”

“There’s a lot of work and a lot of time that goes into these programs, as you can imagine,” she said.

The award from NEWMA – an organization that serves the entire Northeast Wisconsin region – Hebbe said, speaks volumes to the programs Pierce is providing students.

“The award was centered around the ‘Brighter Image Award,’ which is essentially making the manufacturing career pathways seem more exciting – changing the image of it for the younger generation,” she said. “Going out into schools, spending time with educators, bringing students into Pierce and showing them all the opportunities that exist here – there’s, again, a lot of work that goes into that. So, to be recognized by NEWMA goes to show that we are making a difference with the efforts that we’re doing.”

Through CESA 6, more than 37,500 students state-wide have been employed among 17,207 participating employers. 

“We work very closely with CESA 6 because every school has a different contact when it comes to connecting with their students,” she said. “If it wasn’t for CESA 6, it would be quite the challenge to work with all the schools that we do. We have students from 16 different schools today employed with Pierce through the YA program.”

Since starting the YA program in 2021, Hebbe said it’s been “quite successful.”

“And I think CESA 6 has seen that through the opportunities that we’ve provided to the students,” she said.