Seeing into their future

The 930-ton machine will be shipped to Iceland to be used to bore 28 miles of water-supply tunnel.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- About 50 high school and college students and their instructors from the tri-county area had the chance to see the light at the end of the educational tunnel on a large scale Thursday evening.
They did so by visiting a 400-foot-long, $10 million tunnel-boring machine, made by Robbins Co., which was on display at a Hendricks Road plant rented by Robbins, where about 40 people are employed.
The visit to the plant was coordinated by the Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster, which grants degrees in fluid power and power and equipment.
"So much of this equipment is fairly technical. And one of the things we have an obligation to do is to help these young people understand that there's a tremendous need for technically trained people," said Greg Gordon, assistant professor and coordinator of fluid power and power and equipment at ATI.
"The evidence is: They're hiring our graduates," at Robbins, he said.
The jobs also pay well, he said. An associate degree graduate of ATI would likely start at between $30,000 and $35,000 a year building such machines, he said.
"When they get into service and field service and the overseas work, that pay goes up substantially," he said.
"There are lots of opportunities right here close to home. All you need's a little education to make it all work for you," Gordon said.
The students who visited the Austintown plant included those from Kent State University, Minerva High School and the Mahoning and Trumbull County career and technical centers.
Destination
The 930-ton machine is the largest of three such machines built by the Solon-based Robbins Co., which will be used to bore 28 miles of water-supply tunnels for a new hydroelectric power plant in Iceland. The machine will be dismantled and transported by truck to Cleveland and then by ship to Iceland.
The 4,500-horsepower machine, which took 20,000 man-hours to build, will drill about a 25-foot-diameter hole through rock at 25 feet per hour. Robbins' machines helped build the Chunnel (the passenger rail tunnel under the English Channel connecting England and France).
"I was interested in how the hydraulics of the machine work," said Dan Kibler, who teaches power equipment mechanics at the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center in Canfield. Kibler, who brought five CTC students with him for the tour, said he'd previously seen such a machine only on TV.
Importance
"Hydraulics is tremendous. That's the way the future is. Everything's driven hydraulically anymore. An automatic transmission is basically a hydraulic transmission that's in your car," he said of careers in hydraulics.
"I think it's pretty awesome," Tom Tofilski of Poland said of the tunnel-boring machine. Tofilski said he is considering studying hydraulics or power equipment at a technical school after he graduates from CTC in Canfield this year.
"It's a pretty intricate machine," said Eric Sanor of East Rochester. Sanor, a student in the associate degree program in manufacturing engineering technology at the Kent State University Salem Campus, said he was glad to see such a machine made in the United States, instead of overseas.
Sanor, who works at Solar Tech, a Salem die shop, said he aspires to obtain a bachelor's degree and design automotive stamping dies.