The Precision Manufacturing Career Exploration Program of Stillwater Area Public Schools is aimed not at students but at teachers and guidance counselors. The program helps them understand the skills needed for jobs in precision manufacturing and how their classroom instruction can better prepare students for the workplace.
On a recent Career Exploration industry visit, five Stillwater area teachers and counselors spent a morning at Mack Engineering in south Minneapolis.
Jackie and Jennifer Salisbury, the mother-daughter co-owners of the company, began the three-hour visit by talking to the educators about what Mack Engineering does: contract manufacturing of precision machined components, from drawer pulls to joysticks to medical devices.
A Geometric Kind Of Mind
The owners also talked about the kinds of skills today's workers need. "A good machinist has a geometric kind of mind," Jackie Salisbury told the visitors. "Someone who builds models, likes tinkering and taking things apart can be successful here."
"There's tons of math out there," Jennifer Salisbury added. Workers need to do trigonometry while standing on the shop floor and make accurate conversions from metrics to English measures. In addition, she said, "Machines break down, and we need people to be creative problem-solvers. It doesn't always go by the book."
After the initial discussion, teachers and counselors toured the clean, well-ventilated plant. They saw machines that produce parts to tolerances one-fourth of the thickness of a sheet of paper. They also toured the quality department, where sophisticated machinery checks the tolerances of finished parts.
First-hand information
ack in the conference room, they learned about Mack Engineering's tuition reimbursement program (100 percent reimbursement upon completion of career-related courses) and work schedule (two shifts, each on a four-day work week).
"Our biggest problem," Jackie Salisbury said, "is that Minnesota law doesn't allow people to work in the shop until they're 18." By that time, workers have been introduced to other careers and are usually lost to manufacturing. Thanks to the Career Exploration Program, 35 educators over the past 3 years have gained first-hand information that they can share with their students.
Laura French is principal of Words Into Action, Inc., and is a freelance writer from Roseville.
