New school to open in Sharon

Officials wanted to locate the school where the less fortunate could walk to class.

By LAURE CIOFFI

VINDICATOR PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU

SHARON, Pa. — The Shenango Valley Foundation can attest to the fact that persistence pays off.

Thanks to much community involvement and support, a new school that trains pupils in state-of-the art equipment for manufacturing is coming to Sharon.

Precision Manufacturing Institute, based in Meadville, Pa., expects to open a second campus in the Broadway North Industrial Park at 700 Dock St., later this year.

“We sort of didn’t choose Sharon; they chose us,” said Jerry Knight, executive director of PMI.

Knight explained it’s been a longtime effort by community leaders from the politicians to business owners wooing his school to the area. It was the participation of the Shenango Valley Foundation that sealed the deal by offering to construct and lease the 13,000-square-foot building to the school.

Larry Haynes, the foundation’s executive director, said they felt financing this building was part of their mission to bring jobs to the region.

“We just thought it was the wisest way to make an impact,” he said citing the old proverb about teaching a man to fish instead of feeding him a fish.

Site of school

The location is also important because it sits near much industry and poverty.

The land is near the DuFerco Farrell Corp. plant, but also just yards away from public housing.

“We wanted to be located in a place where the less fortunate could walk, but also close to industry and bus lines,” Haynes said. They are hoping students will also come from Lawrence County and Ohio to attend classes.

Knight said classes should begin as early as November or December because builders have put the construction on a fast track.

It can’t come soon enough for Angela Palumbo, CareerLink administrator for the Pennsylvania CareerLink office in Mercer County.

“I have employers calling and they need people who are trained, and we don’t have anybody in our area doing that training,” she said. “We have employers absolutely dying for these positions.”

The world of manufacturing has changed greatly over the past 20 to 30 years where previously work was done on manual equipment learned through on-the-job training.

“The technology in manufacturing has just gone crazy,” Knight said. “Now everything is electronic with computers. The skill level has changed.”

Combine that with the fact that the average age of most people working in manufacturing is in the mid- to late 50s, it means jobs are and will continue to abound, he said.

About the institute

PMI opened about 20 years ago after local industry representatives in Meadville were looking for opportunities to train incumbent workers on state of the art equipment.

Since then PMI has grown to offer more than 21 nationally accredited programs, all of which will be offered in Sharon, Knight said.

“Anybody who wants a job in manufacturing, don’t let money be the obstacle. Eighty percent of our students receive some form of financial aid. We’ve trained hundreds of people at no charge,” he said.

Tuition gets paid through grants, companies paying for training, state training dollars and even payment plans where students have paid as little as $10 a week to attend, according to Knight.

“We don’t turn away anybody who wants to learn,” he said.

Class sizes range from seven to nine pupils because of the intense hands-on learning with the machinery. Sharon classes will range from basics such as millwrighting to robotics. Anyone interested must first take an aptitude test to determine where best to start, he said.

Haynes said one of the most attractive things about wooing PMI to the Shenango Valley was its success rate. The school boasts a 98-percent placement rate for its graduating pupils.

Knight said he had one millwright class where all 15 students were offered jobs by the same employer.

He said they have found there’s often an immediate effect on the local economy as the students start coming into the job market and more orders can be filled by the companies hiring them.

“If they want to work, there is no shortage of jobs,” Knight said.

cioffi@vindy.com