Valley laborers cash in on apprenticeship programs

By KALEA HALL

khall@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Joe Neal just finished his workday as a mason tender with a smile on his face, dirt on his shirt and a tan on his arms.

Neal, once an apprentice, is now a journeyman in the Laborers Local 125 union working for Lencyk Masonry on the new Mahoning County Dog Pound project on Meridian Road.

The 25-year-old Vienna resident acknowledges that the job is hard, but he gets to be outside learning a trade and building.

“I never took an appreciation before in how things get put together,” Neal said. “Now, I look at buildings totally differently.”

Next week is the second annual National Apprenticeship Week created by President Barack Obama to recognize the important role apprenticeship programs play in growing a skilled workforce.

“Having the training center and the apprenticeship program, it improves the people we get out on the job,” said Larry Lencyk, president of Lencyk Masonry. “Going to the pre-apprenticeship classes, they get an idea of safety and an idea of what the job entails.”

The Drexel J. Thrash Training Center in Howard, Ohio, is run by Ohio Laborers.

Lencyk is a graduate of an apprenticeship program. He took on the bricklaying apprenticeship in 1973 and became a journeyman in 1977. In 1984, he started his Boardman masonry business.

“It gave me an opportunity to learn,” Lencyk said. “To have the training is very beneficial.”

Before Neal joined the Laborers Local 125 apprenticeship program in May 2013, he was taking a break from attending college and working in a hospital kitchen.

“My dad saw a newspaper ad for an apprenticeship program and I went down and applied,” he said.

Neal became a journeyman in March of this year after he completed 4,000 hours of on-the-job learning and 432 hours of classroom instruction.

“It felt terrific,” Neal said of completing the program. “It’s not just a job; it’s a career. There’s nothing I haven’t found that I don’t like so far.”

The Laborers Local 125 has more than 400 members who work in building construction, heavy highway construction and pipeline construction.

“This isn’t your typical 9-to-5 job,” said Rocky DiGennaro, business manager for Local 125. “It’s a very physically demanding job. You have to work in any kind of weather – all kind of weather.”

Fifteen years ago, the Boardman local started its apprenticeship program to fill the need for workers.

About 10 years ago, the Ohio Laborers’ District Council took over the program. The council works with 22 locals in the state and helps with recruitment, monitoring, scheduling and evaluating for the apprenticeship program.

The apprentices take classes and work at job sites throughout the state and elsewhere to learn the skills of various trades from masonry to blueprinting. Apprentices start off at 60 percent of the journeyman’s rate, and after 1,000 hours and 144 classroom instruction hours, they move up to 70 percent.

Often, the journeymen take the apprentices under their wings.

“They understand that passing the torch to the next generation is what is going to keep the industry alive,” DiGennaro said.

For more information on National Apprenticeship Week, go to: www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/NAW/.