MATC-Fort cuts ribbon on fab lab expansion

By Chris Spangler

Using a plasma cutter, student Freddy Hosey sliced a steel “ribbon” on Thursday, formally opening the newly expanded metal fabrication and welding wing at Madison Area Technical College-Fort Atkinson.

The $1.35 million project added 4,703 square feet of new space and remodeled 3,598 square feet of the workshop and classroom areas built in 2013.

On hand for the grand opening and tours were MATC officials, students and the general public.

“It’s another great day at Madison College,” Dr. Turina Bakken, MATC provost and executive vice president of academic affairs, said in kicking off the program.

“This new 4,500-square-foot renovation adds over 30% more capacity to serve our students, including moving from eight to 17 welding booths,” she said.

Bakken noted that fabrication training supported by this project includes the metal fabrication and welding technical diplomas, welding diploma “bolt-on” to earn both diplomas in a shorter amount of time, summer middle school fabrication camps, dual-credit training with high schools, customized training for local employers and Skills USA district competitions.

“A project of this magnitude took a village … a great village, just like Fort Atkinson,” she said, thanking all who played a part in the project.

Bakken gave a special thanks to the staff for keeping the metals program moving forward during construction and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What I appreciate more than anything is how they did everything possible to make sure that our students didn’t miss any learning during this disruptive time. Continuity of instruction is paramount to them and I thank them very much,” the provost said.

While Thursday was a celebration of the new space, she noted, “Space is just a means to a greater end. Without that teaching and learning magic that happens within that space, it’s not good for that much.”

MATC made this investment because welders and fabricators are a critical part of the local labor market, Bakken said. 

“Our area is considered a hotspot for this kind of work,” she noted.

In 2021, an estimated 3,830 welders and fabricators were employed in MATC’s district, about twice as many as would be expected based on the population, Bakken reported.

“We need a lot of skilled welders and fabricators to support the unique local businesses that operate in our region, and that is especially true in this east region, where there are more than three times as many welders and fabricators employed as would be expected based on the population,” Bakken said.

The demand for these skills is expected to grow 4% to 6% by 2026, she stated.

“Last year, 94 different employers posted more than 800 welding and metal fab jobs in our district, and almost half of those jobs, almost 375, were right here in our east region,” Bakken said, adding that the typical starting salary for those positions was $22 or more, about 5 percent higher than the national average.

“To increase capacity to serve students and employers in a high-demand region, to do that at the highest-quality, safest and most advanced learning spaces for our students, that is why this investment was made,” she noted. “Madison College is committed to Fort Atkinson, and a core to that commitment is academic offerings that are as responsive and relevant as possible to industry, creating the highest quality and modern instructional spaces for our great faculty and providing the best student experience anywhere,” she added. 

Also taking the podium was Victoria Pratt, executive director of the Jefferson County Economic Development Consortium and president of Thrive Economic Development.

Pratt said that Bakken’s remarks on the need for skilled employees were spot on.

Said Pratt: “My job is to bring new primary industry sector businesses into the community and to help our existing businesses stay here and grow in place. As you can imagine, if that’s my job and everybody says they can’t find anybody to hire, I’ve been doing a lot of ducking and hiding of late. 

“People are up in arms, right? Worker shortages are making life for our businesses and, ultimately, for all of us more difficult and more costly.”

Thus, institutions such as MATC and the K-12 school system, as well as parents and grandparents, need to be focused on how to help tomorrow’s workers understand the career opportunities that are right under their noses today, Pratt said.

“Not having workers is a big deal. Businesses need a ready and willing workforce to make a profit. No workers equals a shortage of goods and services. Shortages equal a higher cost,” she explained, adding that it hits everyone in the wallet.

Businesses have been increasing wages to lure employees.

“We are starting people at $25, $27 an hour, who basically have to have a pulse and who are willing to show up every day. This is very real. So the more people we can get trained and get out into the workforce, the better,” she said. 

Pratt pointed out that the worker shortage didn’t just happen all of a sudden.

“First of all, there were 9.5 million fewer human beings born in Gen-X than there were in the Baby Boom generation,” the JCEDC chief said. “That’s going to leave a mark,” added. 

Boomers remain in the workforce, but they are retiring in droves, she noted. The estimates of 10,000 a day have increased in the past several years due to COVID-19 health concerns, the realization they were ready to retire after enjoying working from home during the pandemic and retirement savings boosts due to the stock market rally in 2021.

Similarly, COVID-19 and working from home also caused an unparalleled number of workers to leave the workforce.

Pratt continued: “The big issue was childcare. Schools were closed, no affordable childcare, two working-parent families. They had to make different choices. And they have, in record numbers.

“The new Labor Department report says that there were nearly 5 million more job openings in January of 2022 than available workers. That same report says that approximately 4.3 million  people voluntarily left their jobs in January of 2022. 

“But nearly 50 million Americans quit or changed jobs in the past year. And the reasons cited: low pay, lack of opportunity to advance and feeling disrespected by their employer.”

Labor participation rates also are collapsing, according to Pratt. Looking at the number of workers in 2000 compared to 2022, the rate for 16- to 19-year-olds dropped from 66.5%  to 51.9%, and that for 20- to 24-year-olds went down from 86.5% to 74%.

“Here’s the surprise: The 55- to 64-year-old labor participation rate went from 63% in 2000 to 68% in 2020. And for people age 65-plus, there were only 14% working in 2000, (but) 19.9% working in 2020,” Pratt said. 

State population trends don’t bode well for future worker availability, she added.

“Between 1990 and 2000, the state population went up by 9.6%. Between 2000 and 2010, it only went up by 6%. Between 2010 and 2020, it went up by 3.6%,” Pratt said, adding that is way below the national average.

Most of the growth in the state is in the metropolitan areas. Thus, institutions in outlying areas such as MATC-Fort Atkinson are especially important.

“We need them. We need to make sure that we are training tomorrow’s workers, that we’re introducing them to career opportunities and keeping them in our communities …,” Pratt stated. 

She advised that the problems cannot be fixed quickly.

“So I would say to you, if you’re thinking that maybe you’re interested in going back to work, you’re looking for a way, employers are flexible in today’s world. Go to them and have that conversation,” she concluded. 

Representing local industry Thursday was Ron Roehl, CEO of CNC Solutions in Johnson Creek.

As a robotics and automation company, he said, CNC Solutions is “putting robots in where you can’t find people to do the work.”

The company already attained 60% of its sales goal in the first two months of 2022.

“The worker-asset ratio in Wisconsin 0.77, which means for every person retiring, 0.77 is coming in,” Roehl said. 

“The biggest problem I have is I can’t find workers to deploy robots, believe it or not,” he added, saying that robot programmers are difficult to hire.

“I look at it as organic growth. We need to hire talent immediately. It’s not there; we’re deploying robots to help that. But we’re also looking at organic growth, and that’s in the programs with youth,” he said. 

He lauded MATC’s summer fabrication camps for children ages 12-15, “getting the kids involved early enough to understand what welding is.”

Saying that MATC’s metals facility expansion is going to be a great asset for the community, Roehl noted that right now, CNC Solutions is outsourcing welding and fabrication work to Green Bay, Germantown, Milwaukee and even Illinois just to find people to make weldments and configure systems on which the robots can be mounted.

“I think we, as manufacturers, need to step up and take a little more responsibility. I hear time and again, ‘well, schools aren’t giving us what we need. They’re not deploying, they’re not getting kids out.’ Well, we can’t wait. We have to go to the schools, we have to go to MATC and start supporting these projects and programs,” Roehl said.

He advised upscaling, saying that it is cheaper for his company to pay for a current employee to gain new skills and earn a two-year technical degree than it is to hire someone through a recruiter.

“I look at myself as a customer, the students coming out of the school here as the product and the schools the supplier,” he said, using a supply chain analogy. “I’ll tell you right now, I spend a lot of time with suppliers, and if a supplier is not giving me what I need, we’re going to have a sit-down, a come-to-Jesus meeting,” he added. 

It is up to the manufacturers to let the schools know what skills are needed, he emphasized.

“It’s not going to be a short game. It’s got to be a combination of finding immediate talent and it also has to be organic-type growth, from the campus’ summer camps with kids all the way up through the tech college,” Roehl said.

Jimmy DeGidio, co-program director of MATC’s Metal Fabrication Program, told attendees Thursday that he has been reflecting how the metals program evolved to this point at MATC-Fort Atkinson.

“I started at the college in 2008 teaching evening classes at Fort High School for the college. In spring 2008, we offered the first two-credit classes over at Fort High; we did not have any labs here. In 2012, the college passed its first referendum for Fort Atkinson and we received $1.2 million to build the manufacturing lab at the campus,” he recalled.

At that time, DeGidio was hired full time and named co-program director. Two years later, the Wisconsin Technical College System approved the Metal Fabrication Program for MATC, and Roger Bratberg was hired as a full-time metal fabrication instructor.

In 2016, DeGidio said, MATC started the program at the Truax Campus in Madison, adding the Bolt-On Welding Program enabling students to earn both the welding and fabrication diplomas with only nine additional credits.

Subsequent milestones cited include hiring Dave Nitardy and Rodney Cooley as laboratory coordinators, working with area high schools to offer dual-credit programming, DeGidio and Al Weishoff in Madison becoming state advisors for the Skills USA competition, hosting the metal fabrication programs at MATC-Fort Atkinson, construction of the expansion being celebrated today and, in 2022, getting approval to purchase a CNC fiber laser.

“The success that the Fort Atkinson teams have had in Skills USA has been wonderful. In 2015, we had a practice run; we didn’t even have a program yet, but were allowed to practice. In 2016, we took fourth place in the state. In 2017, we took first, we took gold and we finished 15^th in the nation. In 2019, we took bronze, 2020 was a COVID year and we were unable to compete, and in 2021, we took silver, and hopefully this year, we will be able to do better,” DeGidio said.

Rounding out the speakers was Hosey, who enrolled as a student at MATC-Fort Atkinson in August 2021.

“It’s been just wonderful,” said the 2011 Lake Mills High School graduate.

He said he loves hands-on work and has been employed in construction.

“The welding part of it I’ve always wanted to try. I’d seen videos of guys doing stuff like that and I always wanted to see what it was like. The dollars signs talked; that’s your motivator right there,” Hosey said.

In less than a year, the program has shown “how quick it can happen and where you can go and how much you can do and the opportunities you can have at your fingertips,” he said.

Hosey said that he had been nervous because he never had done welding before. However, the instructors demonstrate skills outlined in the textbooks before the students try them themselves.

Meanwhile, Hosey added, the new metals wing “has been a wonderful addition to my learning experience, too.”

He said it has been fun watching his young classmates grow in skill, as he has greatly enjoyed using the new welding booths and equipment.

Also Thursday, Maria McClellan, regional director of MATC’s East Region, read the Native American land acknowledgement and Matthew Young, campus operations manager, welcomed guests.