Students visit MCCTC for manufacturing event

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

CANFIELD

Brianna Moxley, a sophomore at Austintown Fitch High School, assembled the device in just a few seconds as her classmates watched.

Brianna, 15, was one of 800 students in grades 8-10 from Mahoning County schools to attend Tuesday’s Cutting Edge Manufacturing Event at Mahoning County Career and Technical Center. The event aims to highlight growing opportunities in manufacturing.

Students, who visited the center in groups of 200 throughout the day, learned about welding, hydraulics and pneumatics, precision machining and engineering and the respective available jobs. At the end of the session, they had to use a diagram to put together a pump and use it to inflate a balloon.

“I’ve done it before,” Brianna explained of her speed.

She’s attended manufacturing events in previous years.

Brianna isn’t sure what she’ll do after graduating from high school.

Professionals from BOC Water Hydraulics of Salem, Humtown Products of Columbiana and other companies and MCCTC instructors and students explained how each of the pump’s pieces involved some type of manufacturing.

“Manufacturing is about to change,” Don Covert of Humtown Products told students.

Older-style manufacturing is subtractive, meaning elements are removed. The latest, such as 3-D printing, is additive.

“You’re adding material to nothing,” Covert said.

Andy Sox of BOC graduated in 2008 from MCCTC.

“I learned a lot here and I used it there,” he said, referring to his job.

He said he has a good job with high pay and he likes what he does. “There’s a satisfaction to doing your job and seeing those results at the end of the day,” Sox said.

Students began their MCCTC visit listening to Arel Moodie, an author, speaker and entrepreneur.

Moodie said he grew up in a New York housing project. Some of his childhood friends have served time in prison, been killed or gotten involved with drugs.

“I made one simple choice: I don’t want this to be my life,” Moodie said.

He founded companies, leads a podcast, wrote a best seller and has delivered two TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks.

Moodie told students that manufacturing is a great career choice in the Mahoning Valley. The average salary for a manufacturing job in the area is $69,454, compared with $34,725 for a nonmanufacturing position.

“By the time you graduate from high school, there will be more jobs available than people qualified to fill them,” he said.