Apprentices in Demand

SEPTEMBER 14, 2015

Labor demographics highlight need for apprenticeship programs

TARYN PLUMB

SPECIAL TO THE WORCESTER BUSINESS JOURNAL

Existing in some form or another for thousands of years, apprenticeships are about as old as the concept of work itself; they are the method by which novices have mastered the literal building blocks of society.

And even still, when college degrees are touted as one of the 21st century's steadiest paths to gainful employment, apprenticeships – learning on the job – remain relevant.

With the combination of a consistent pipeline of infrastructure and building projects and an aging workforce, skilled trades continue to demand and actively court apprentices.

According to a 2013 report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, there will be a shortfall of 5 million workers with post-secondary education and training by the year 2020.

"In the next five to 10 years, there's going to be a mass exodus – we're going to be losing people with 20, 30 years of experience," said David Minasian, organizer with the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. The average age of a carpenter, he noted, is 45. "We need to train the next generation now so that when that exodus happens, we have a skilled workforce that is competitive and can meet the demands of an ever-changing industry," Minasian said.

That begins, simply, with awareness.

Minasian and others stressed the various benefits of skilled trades, which encompass a wide swath including carpentry, bricklaying, plumbing, electrical, IT and – more recently as it regains a foothold in the United States – manufacturing.

Speaking of his industry in particular, training director Mark Kuenzel of Local 7 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Springfield emphasized a "good retirement, better pay, better education, local representation, a safer workplace."

Electricians in training start at about $15 an hour, moving up to $26-plus while apprenticing, Kuenzel said, before ascending to a journeyman's wage of $38 per hour.

Minasian agreed about the potential of carpentry apprenticeship programs, saying, "In four years, you can have a middle-class career."

Programs originated in 1930s

According to the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning public policy research and advocacy organization, a formal, registered system of apprenticeships was created by the National Apprenticeship Act in 1937. Apprenticeships last between one and six years, depending on the industry, and include 2,000 hours of on-the-job-learning and at least 144 hours of classroom-based instruction. A certificate of completion – serving as a portable, nationally recognized credential – is issued after all thresholds have been crossed.

The New England Regional Council of Carpenters has about 60 apprentices in Worcester County, according to Minasian. Over a four-year-long process, they work on-site, and also receive training at the New England Carpenters Training Center in Millbury.

Prospective electricians, meanwhile, spend five years working 40-hour weeks and participating in 1,000 hours of education, according to Kuenzel.

Recruitment, he said, includes holding regular informational sessions, and constantly networking with vocational schools, colleges, community groups and employers.

Preparing for the future is also about consistent investment, Minasian noted. For example, he said, the Millbury training center has 14 new welding shops under construction, and apprentices are constantly apprised of the newest energy efficiency and green building tactics.

Proactivity is also key

"We're definitely bumping up to replace the numbers that are leaving," Kuenzel said, stressing, "We always tell our young apprentices: 'Learn all you can from the old-timers.' "

Over the past few years, an IBEW apprenticeship training committee has been systematically taking in larger apprenticeship classes – between 18 and 25, Kuenzel said, compared with 12 to 18 in the past. Every year, the committee holds five informational sessions that attract 400 to 500 prospects. And ultimately, he noted an overall increased interest in trades.

"The quality of candidates we're getting is very good," he said.

Better training, better trainees

Stressing a higher caliber of students due to both stellar vocational school programs and early- or mid-career changers, Minasian agreed that "we are getting a record amount of applicants."

But going forward, much more can be done, said Susan Mailman, board member of the Massachusetts Apprenticeship Advisory Council, and fourth-generation owner and president of Coghlin Electrical Contractors and Coghlin Network Services, both in Worcester.

Community colleges and manufacturers can concurrently build curriculum, and industries can begin reaching out to students at a younger age through such efforts as pre-apprenticeship programs, she said. Also, the city, contractors and skilled workers can forge partnerships that can help all parties – for example, establishing requirements that certain projects have a minimum apprenticeship ratio.

"We talk a lot about economic development, pushing the city forward," said Mailman. "We can do it in conjunction with workforce development."

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September/October Artscope: Shared Sensibilities

Shared Sensibilities

Sept/Oct 2015

THE POWER OF MUSIC ROLLS ON

by Taryn Plumb

Black ink dances up and down, left and right, intertwining in loops, ridges, curlicues, arcs, waves and pirouettes. Dark solitary streaks bob frenetically or lackadaisically and flatten out. Clusters of lines bunch tight together and then release in varied contours.

Interspersed between them, following their own systematic patterns, are punched-out holes, rectangular voids of space: short… short… short… pause… long… long… pause. Snippets of verse also accompany at random, beginning, ending and drifting off in mid-thought.

“…had our share, we’ve known the meaning of sorrow, blossoms of…”

“…reason, Jeannine, I dream of lilac time, your eyes the beam…”

Billowing out more than 20 feet, the roughly foot-wide scroll, “Dream in Lilac Time” by Lewiston artist Gail Skudera, is a physical manifestation of lyric and melody. On display at the Bates Mills complex in Lewiston through October 30, it is one of more than two dozen works that interpret, manipulate and alter vintage rolls from self-playing pianos.

As part of “The Piano Roll Project: Shared Sensibilities,” 30 artists painted, drew, wove, sewed, wrote, cut, tore and incorporated collage and repetition as a means to meld abstract and geometric patterns, pastoral scenes and contemporary themes with the enduring power of music. Crafted of continuous rolls of perforated paper, a few measuring as long as 40 feet, they are spread throughout the second floor of the 19th century Bates Mill Complex. Some entwine multiple supportive posts in the rehabbed industrial space; others span their full length along walls and beams; a few drape and dangle from the rustic ceiling.

To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue! Click here to find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.

Artscope Magazine: History, in juxtapositions

Boughton's American Home
July/August 2015

Opening the Door to the Unexpected

By Taryn Plumb

                                            Wingtips, 2014, pigment inkjet print, 15” x 15”.

Imagine you’re relaxing in your cozy, mid-century modern home. You’ve got a book, a drink, a comfy chaise lounge. And then you look out your living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows.

Where there might normally be a manicured lawn, kids at play or beatific waving neighbors — this is the unblemished post-war 1950s, after all — instead, here is the bottom of the ocean with driftwood, sea ferns nudged by the current, and fish swimming listlessly.

And then suddenly — Damsels in distress! Adventure! Danger! Right outside your windows, two voluptuous, bikini-clad women in peril suddenly appear (one entangled in the undulating arms of a menacing octopus) and three heroic men wielding spears and knives are to the rescue.

To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue! Click here to find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.

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Artscope Magazine: Visual poet Robert Saunders

Robert Saunders
July/August 2015

Playing By His Own Rules

By Taryn Plumb

                                                        Bake King, No Winner, 2015, antique baking pan, nuts and bolts, glass and wood.

Robert Saunders has never found amusement in other people’s games.

As a kid, for example, he would sit down to Chinese checkers with his grandmother, and although he recalls “hating it,” he would keep playing, just following his own private imaginary strategy. Similarly, in lieu of baseball – the traditional pastime of many boys – he concocted a way to run the bases, score and strike out simply by rolling four dice.

That flouting of conformity and adherence to his own rules translates into his large body of abstract artwork, composed of installations and drawings that the Gardiner, Maine artist refers to as “visual poetry.”

His pieces are composites of intersecting clean lines, crisp shapes, stray numbers and letters, as well as assemblages of various found items. The effect – once the eyes adjust to the mélange – is a unique sort of symmetry, a mode of communication and a game all of his own making.

To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue! Click here to find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.

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Artscope Magazine: The enduring appeal of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys

It's a Mystery
July/August 2015

The Brush Uncovers Teenage Supersleuths

By Taryn Plumb

                                                                       James Mathewuse, Very Deadly Yours, 1986, pastel on velour paper.

It’s the 1930s. Three stately women in chic slim-fit dresses, heels and finger wave bobs stand clustered at the edge of a lake, inspecting a piece of jewelry.

Flash-forward roughly 30 years, and the same three women are depicted as decidedly younger, more confident and casual, even tomboy-ish — they walk barefoot in the water, button-down shirts tucked into rolled-up jeans.

In the intervening decades, the trio, featured on the cover of the classic Nancy Drew mystery, “The Clue of the Broken Locket,” goes through at least two other transformations that reflect changes in society, values and fashion.

When many of us pick up a book, the cover art is somewhat of an afterthought (even if it’s what initially drew our eye); it’s the goodies inside that we’re after.

But in the upcoming exhibit, “Book Illustration: Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys,” at The Brush Art Gallery and Studios in Lowell, cover art takes its rightful place at the forefront. On display from August 8 to
September 12, the show will feature more than 40 images that have served as the first glimpses into the adventures of the world’s most beloved youth detectives.

To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue! Click here to find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.

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Family Business Awards: Fuller's of Auburn

FOCUS: FAMILY BUSINESS AWARDS

Fuller Automotive, Auburn: Cars have changed; the name hasn't

BY TARYN PLUMB
SPECIAL TO THE WORCESTER BUSINESS JOURNAL

Fuller Automotive of Auburn knows cars. Now in its fourth generation, the company has been around for nearly as long as gas-powered vehicles have been.

Family patriarch Willis Fuller started out in the early 20th century doing general repairs on horse-driven buggies. But once the inexpensive and easy-to-drive Model T began to gain in popularity around the time of World War I, he saw a great opportunity.

The business, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2014, has since flourished, and Willis' traits of ingenuity and forethought have been passed down through the generations.

"Success relies on responsibility to each other, whether it's today, 20 years ago, 60 years ago," said Chris Fuller, who runs Fuller Automotive. "Our great-grandfather was a great guy, our grandfather was a great guy, our father is a great guy. We've all been very supportive of the community and the people around us."

Fuller's is split into several entities spread across four buildings on one "campus," as the family likes to call it: Fuller Automotive, run by Chris, encompassing its automotive and tire center and SpeeDee Oil change; Fuller Auto Body and Collision Center, overseen by his brother Josh; and Fuller Auto Sales, handled by a longtime family friend, Dana Stoico. The company also provides towing and rapid auto rental services.

Chris and Josh's sister, Kerri Cunningham, is involved with the family business as well, handling administrative and marketing duties.

And, as Josh explained, their father, Richard Fuller, who ran the business for nearly 30 years, still keeps an eye on things. "He's not active in the day-to-day," he said. "It's more for moral support, guidance and wisdom."

Willis Fuller started out in 1914 — the year when Model T sales passed 250,000, according to the Ford Motor Co. — doing automotive ignition wiring in Worcester before he moved his shop to the family farm on Pakachoag Hill in Auburn. It has since moved to several locations and gone through expansions, finally settling on a 3-acre site at 505 Washington St. in Auburn (Route 20), and employing roughly 50 full and part-time workers.

Chris, a graduate of Assumption College, came to the business in 1996, followed in 2003 by Josh, a Bentley University grad who initially started out working in finance and accounting in Boston.

"I realized that working in the family business was a great opportunity," Josh recalled. "I saw it as more of a challenge, trying to do greater and better things than the contributions before us."

Chris, meanwhile, said he was drawn to the business by a sense of pride, and a fear of working in a cliched workplace.

"The idea of sitting in a cubicle scared me," he said. "I saw (the family business) as my best opportunity to make the life that I wanted for myself."

Offering the spectrum of automotive needs — from repairs to tune-ups to sales to rentals — the company credits its success to its ability to be flexible and down-to-earth with its customers, and to offer personalized service.

"There's no automated step of how things must be handled," said Chris, who loans out his personal truck a few times a week for customers who are in a bind. It's "operating on a level of one human being to another human being. That's how we've earned trust."

Fuller's has experienced some of its most rapid growth in just the last few years; in 2012, the auto body unit finished construction on an 11,000-square-foot expansion, and the following year, the automotive mechanical repair branch added 2,000 square feet. The collision center is also in growth mode, currently adding 7,000 square feet, according to Josh.

"This is a rapidly changing industry that needs to blend customer satisfaction with the needs of the insurance companies, all while working with a shrinking talent pool," said longtime Fuller partner Rick Hutchinson, of Auto Body Supplies and Paint in East Hartford, Conn. "Fuller has been able to excel in all areas, putting them where they are today."

How do they succeed?

"We focus on simplicity: Work hard, be good to people, generate slow, stable growth," Josh said.

As for other plans? In keeping with his grandfather's open-minded mentality, Chris summed it up: "Always be ready for an opportunity."

Knowing their jobs

Keeping family members productive, happy and — most importantly — sane comes down to having clearly defined roles and goals, the brothers agreed.

"It comes down to who we are as people," Chris said. "We both love and respect each other. It's a credit to everybody — there's no shortsightedness, jealousy, anger."

They're a close family; between the four Fuller siblings, there are eight grandkids, so the brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters "all like to hang out together, like to be together," Chris said.

Maintaining a strong local bond has also been tantamount to success. Over the years, Fuller's has donated time and money to numerous sports teams, groups and clubs, including $10,000 for a new scoreboard at Auburn High School, and $10,000 to Pappas recreation complex in Auburn. Customers also have the ability to register for periodic, on-location wellness clinics.

As Chris noted, "There has to be an honest and earned respect and relationship between a business and its community."

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Family Business Awards: Knight's Limousine

FOCUS: FAMILY BUSINESS AWARDS

Knight's Airport Limousine, Shrewsbury: Rolling and growing through 3 decades

BY TARYN PLUMB
SPECIAL TO THE WORCESTER BUSINESS JOURNAL

With more than a half-dozen brothers, uncles, nephews and moms working together regularly, Knight's Airport Limousine Service is most definitely a family business. But the Shrewsbury-based company, which has numerous longtime employees, likes to consider the entire business itself one big family.

"From the drivers, to our office personnel, to our dispatchers, we treat people well, we try to do the best we can for them, and they've done that for us in return," general manager Tom Hogan said. "Our commitment has been shown to them, and their commitment to us."

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Knight's started out in Grafton with just three vehicles – and not even enough drivers to staff them.

Three decades later, the family-run company employs more than 135 full- and part-time workers, is equipped with 60-plus vehicles, and does an average of 200 trips a day. With a fleet of town cars, passenger vans and minibuses, it makes trips all over New England, and has added private services.

It started when Tom and his brother, Mike were employed by a similar company, and decided to strike out on their own. Their father, Gene, was instrumental in the company's inception.

"He helped us get the financing, logistics, got us up and running, played referee," said Hogan. "Our father wanted to set up his boys in business."

Along with Tom and Mike, who serves as president, the company employs three generations: their mother, Carole, is a part-time receptionist; uncle Neal is a dispatcher; and their two sons and nephew are drivers, dispatchers and general maintenance/cleaning personnel.

From the get-go, the company stressed family. The business is named for Tom and Mike's mother's maiden name. "We were thinking of a name that was easy to remember, and that also had a family tie," Carole said.

Other honoree "family" members include sales manager Denise Kapulka, who has been with the company for more than 20 years, and office manager Mark Ford, who's been involved since almost the beginning.

"Mark has been a friend of the boys since childhood," Carole said. "(He) is a big part of our team."

Ultimately – and not surprisingly – the company's success, Hogan said, comes down to the service: Getting people where they need to go.

Lynne Haglund, corporate events planner for the rapidly growing Westborough-headquartered electronic health records company eClinicalWorks, has been a loyal customer for 10 years – and she can't say enough good things about them.

"They're on time, reasonable, reliable, honest," she said. "They're very nice people, very professional. … They're the first company I think of. It's just a nice company to work with."

Hogan added: "We have the best drivers out there. The hiring, training and re-training of the drivers (are) a huge part of the organization."

They essentially serve as ambassadors, he said, so the way they look and perform represents the company. "They're the first point of contact with our customers, usually the only point of contact with our customers," said Hogan.

Real-time communication

Aiding them in that respect, all vehicles were recently upgraded with tablets, so all drivers can have "up-to-date, real-time information" about changes to pickups or flights.

A dedication to the greater good is also a conduit to prosperity. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Knight's donated vehicles and drivers to transport doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to New York City; after the Haiti earthquake, they helped get medical workers to airports; they have also donated vehicles to the Active Heroes Carry the Fallen event, which raises awareness of veteran suicide, and Grafton's Memorial Day parade. In addition, Knight's belongs to numerous local chambers of commerce, and family members have participated in various cancer walks.

"Just to be a part of the community, that we have the ability to give something back," said Hogan. "We're very proud to be able to do that."

Knight's gives back in other ways, as well. The company recently converted about 15 of its vehicles to run on propane. The vehicles are fueled by an on-site, 18,000-gallon propane fueling station. And the service itself – transporting multiple people at once – is, in and of itself, eco-friendly.

"Vans take up to three additional vehicles off the road, which leaves a smaller carbon footprint," said Hogan.

As far as keeping the family business running smoothly, division of duties is key. Mike and Tom have separate offices; Tom handles drivers, operations and day-to-day duties, while Mike is the vehicle guy – dealing with buying, selling, insurance, repairs and mechanics.

"To each have your own separate duties to perform each day so that you're not in each other's way – that can go a long way," Hogan said.

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