Mike Ouellette has a pile of 200 applications on his office desk at the St. Clair College Skilled Trades Regional Training Centre in Windsor, Ont.
That’s 200 people looking to get accepted into the coveted Earn While You Learn program offered at the College.
But as Ouellette looks through the latest batch of applicants, he must be very careful about who he selects because equipment is limited and only 15 to 20 students are accepted into the program every six months.
It’s a 46-week crash course where students receive training on safety, technical math, blueprint reading as well as training on a wide variety of state-of-the-art equipment, such as CNC machines. Students also graduate with a precision metal cutting certificate and first-year exemption towards their apprenticeship.
“It's a very intense 10 months, but it's only for the serious players,” said Ouellette, who first launched the Regional Training Centre in 2010 in partnership with the Valiant Corporation, to help meet industry demands. “The students come in here green as grass. They have no experience. When they're done 10-and-a-half months in the program, they’re turnkey. They're actually making money for the companies out there.”
According to Ouellette, being “turnkey” is a very attractive quality to employers, who don’t have to spend time training new hires and can instead expect productive workers who can hit the ground running.
“We have companies that are just knocking on my door asking for students constantly,” said Ouellette, who said company owners literally mark their calendars for when the next intake of students will finish school. “Employers have such good experience with this program because it saves them a lot of money and they don't have to train people.”
In January of 2017, St. Clair College joined forces with Ouellette to operate the Skilled Trades Regional Training Centre, as the programming aligned closely with the College’s goals.
Aside from being beneficial to employers, the program is highly sought after by students because tuition is completely free, and students are paid to work while they’re learning the trades.
“How many students can say they've been working for the last year, getting an education while getting paid for it?” said Jason Brown, who was in the first intake of the program back in 2010 and now works at the Regional Training Centre. “I don't know of any programs that offer that, other than this one.”
Eddie Odisho, who just graduated, was accepted into the program during the previous intake.
“It’s an amazing program, to be honest,” said Odisho, who previously went to school for biochemistry and later worked in property management. He realized those lines of work weren’t for him, and when he heard about the Earn While You Learn program, he gave it a shot.
“It almost seems too good to be true, to be honest,” said Odisho. “You are paid while you're doing it, so anybody who's worried about income while they're going to school, that's taken care of.”
As you walk the shop room floor, you’ll find many past students who share the same experience as Odisho.
Tasha Mason remembers her journey to the program as a 21-year-old single mother with a three-year-old child to support. She was working part-time at the mall and struggling to make ends meet when her father, who works in the skilled trades, suggested she give it a try.
“I was like, no, no, no. That's not going to be for me,” recalled Mason. “I'm a girly girl. I don't want to get dirty all that kind of stuff.”
It took some convincing, but she came to meet with Ouellette, who convinced her to give it a try.
“Eleven years later, I’m still here,” said Mason, who now works at the Regional Training Centre as a mentor for the students.
“You can go from not having any work experience, not having any education, to coming here, and you have a full-time job. When you leave here, you have a career,” said Mason, who gets great fulfillment from helping other students walk the same educational path.
“It's honestly a dream. Every day I wake up knowing I have a career,” she said. “If you love it, just stick with it.”
The students who get accepted into the Earn While You Learn program come from a variety of backgrounds. Joe Iera worked for years as a graphic designer, handling accounts for Chrysler Canada. When the company was restructured as Fiat-Chrysler, he found himself out of a job.
“It was time to make a change,” Iera said, faced with a decision whether to stay in Windsor, or move elsewhere to pursue graphic design work.
“I thought I had to give it a shot. I didn't know if I would be good at it. I didn't know if I'd be comfortable doing it, but I thought it was worth the risk,” said Iera, who also had a wife and newborn child to help support when he was looking for work.
“I thought It was impossible for me to go back to school, but this provided me with an opportunity to go to school but still make an income at the same time,” said Iera. “It was perfect. I slid right on in, made an income, supported my family, and then ended up with a brand-new career and new skills.”
“I absolutely loved it. A lot of my skills did transfer over,” he said. “It was a nice, smooth transition. I picked it up. Loved it.”
“Best decision I've ever made.”
It’s success stories like these that make Mike Ouellette’s job incredibly satisfying, but something else still keeps him up at night.
While he’s helped train roughly 4,000 people over the past 15 years, he sees the challenges the manufacturing industry is facing attracting skilled workers and wishes he could do even more.
“I find more and more, companies are starving for good, experienced people. And eventually it's going to hurt industry, because we won't be able to compete anymore,” said Ouellette, noting companies who can’t find the right labour compliment are forced to move offshore.
“We need industry to stay in Canada, in Windsor,” said Ouellette, who adds obtaining government funding could help grow the Training Centre to help it reach its maximum potential.
“We can grow this. I think industry needs a lot more than what we're able to produce,” he said. “We're only putting out 15 students every six months. That's not enough. We need 150 and that's just to be competitive in the world market.”
Ouellette is firm in his position: We need more Joe Ieras, more Tasha Masons, more Jason Browns, and more Eddy Odishos.
“It's a career, a career you'll have for life,” remarked Odisho, who is about to start a full-time job with Cavalier Tool and Manufacturing Limited.
“This is my third career and I think this is the one.”
