Suffolk Community College Gets $1.6 Million Grant

By Olivia Winslow, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

Mar. 12–Suffolk County Community College has received a second federal Department of Labor grant, this one worth nearly $1.67 million over three years, to develop manufacturing training programs to help fill skills gaps in the local labor force.

“This grant addresses the training and certification of those skilled labor forces,” said John Lombardo, director of corporate training at the college, who cited welders, machinists and sheet metal workers.

“There’s a national shortage of welders and machinists,” in particular, Lombardo said. “It’s an inherent problem around the country.”

Lombardo said the jobs are highly skilled, and workers need to know how to operate the computerized equipment involved.

“The equipment today is much more computer-controlled than it was 20 years ago,” Lombardo said. For example, “There’s a microprocessor that controls the heat and depth of a welding instrument.” Workers need to know how to adjust the microprocessor when necessary, he said.

“It’s very high tech,” said Henry Kleitsch, president of a machine shop company, H&H Technologies in Bohemia, and a Copiague sheet metal fabrication company, Tatra Industries.

“Everything is done on computers. They’re programmed. The worker has to have knowledge of programming and also how to manipulate the program to get the part to come out correctly,” said Kleitsch, who was among those who advised the college on its Labor Department application.

Kleitsch added the region is in great need of manufacturing workers. “We’ve experienced companies not able to find manufacturing talent, so they’re forced to go overseas. So we can help ourselves by training people in the industry. If people are readily available, I think companies would be more inclined to stay here.”

Lombardo said Suffolk’s program, which he thinks will be in full operation by 2009, will begin later this year with the training of teachers needed for the classes. The college also will be training high school technology teachers in the William Floyd School District, as part of its emphasis to reach out to high school students to create a “pipeline” for much-needed manufacturing workers.

Using a previous Labor Department three-year grant of $2.4 million, the first installment of which was received in 2005, the college has developed an Advanced Mechatronics Training program, which seeks to train students and workers in specialized manufacturing areas involving sophisticated equipment, such as the aerospace, medical equipment, and homeland security industries.

Lombardo pointed to a 2004 study that found “skills gaps” on the Island in these and other high-tech manufacturing areas.

Suffolk is one of 69 community colleges and community-based institutions nationwide that won the new grants, out of 341 that applied, the Labor Department said.

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