Inside IALR

A Steady Flow of Qualified Workers: Defense Manufacturers on the Value of ATDM

• Institute for Advanced Learning and Research

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Recruiting skilled manufacturing talent is expensive, time-consuming, and unpredictable. But it doesn’t have to be.

Recorded during a recent career fair for the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing (ATDM) program at IALR, this episode features Slade Gardner from Big Metal Additive, John Duncan from Penn United Technology and Ashley Webb from Vulcan Tool Company. They explain why they rely on ATDM to meet their workforce needs. 

From reduced training risk to graduates who “hit the ground running,” these employers explain what makes ATDM different and why the program continues to deliver value to companies across the defense industrial base.

Whether you’re hiring one machinist or building a long-term talent pipeline, this is the employer story behind ATDM.

The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research serves as a regional catalyst for economic transformation in Southern Virginia. Our services, programs and offerings are diverse, impactful and far reaching. 

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Recruitment Costs And Chaos

Slade Gardner

Yeah, recruitment's an expense. Recruitment is difficult. It takes time, it takes personnel, planning. A lot of times, if you're doing recruitment on your own, it's a chaotic and scattered process. ATDM gives us an efficiency of identifying pre-vetted candidates that come with a certificate of training, that sometimes come with a personal endorsement.

Caleb Ayers

Welcome to another episode of Inside IALR. Thanks for joining us today. Um today we are here to talk about something. If you have listened to this show at all, we talk about a lot. It is the Accelerated Training and Defense Manufacturing Program. Today, as we are recording this, we are in the uh, I guess, during a break during one of our ATDM career fairs, where hundreds of students who are training in this program are connecting with employers who are actively hiring these students, and we have three of those employers here. So uh to start, I will let each of you guys kind of introduce yourself and your company.

Slade Gardner

My name is Slade Gardner. I'm president of Big Metal Additive. We're a parts producer. We use additive manufacturing to make parts for our Navy customers, but we also work with NASA and aerospace and we produce munitions as well. We do large-scale metal additive manufacturing. It involves a welding technology to deposit metal. It involves a machining technology to finish the metal. We do both of those operations in the same environment. And we have a AS 9100 quality management system in play. So we perform to Navy technical publication standards, to NASA standards, which are our primary customers. Jordan Smith is an employee of ours, also a graduate of the ATDM welding program. Welding is fundamental to what we do as is CNC machining and additive manufacturing.

Ashley Webb

I'm Ashley Webb. I'm the owner and president of Paradigm Industrial, and we do business as a Vulcan Tool Company out of Dayton, Ohio. We are a contract manufacturer job shop. We do a variety of work for both the government and prime contractors and a variety of non-government related work. We have invested heavily in making sure that we have the infrastructure so we can be compliant with CMMC level two and continue to do work for the government in both the military and non-military sectors. We have machining, welding, and fabrication. We also do machine repair. So we have a variety of different functions under one roof. We have uh hired folks from ATDM for quality department and actively pursuing CNC machinists and welders for both our toolroom machining, precision machining, and our fabrication and machine repair functions.

John Duncan

My name is John Duncan from Penn United Technology. Uh we are a precision manufacturing company in Western PA, uh Cabot PA actually. Uh, but we are in many different fields. Additive manufacturing is how we support the Navy uh in the development of their um Navy products that we use. We have been in probably about eight years in the additive, but it is definitely taken off pretty heavily now, which is how we found out about ATDM and the program. Um I am the team leader of our training center, so I'm in charge of all of our trainings, apprenticeships, customer trainings, and I am involved in recruiting as well. Um, but we are very happy. We've hired some actually one person from ATDM, but I think since a year ago we have been here for every career fair. Um but the the product that comes out of here allows us, we we have our own training center, but the students coming out of here allow us to they jump start. You know, it's they're able to hit the ground running, and then we can continue their training from there. So that's that's a big plus for us. Um but we are many different fields, a lot of government. Um we're in aerospace, gas and oil, automotive, medical as well. So we're very happy to be here.

What ATDM Is And How It Works

Caleb Ayers

I I love the backstories and also the I'm sure you guys are gonna tell what you first thought about ATDM when you heard about it. I know a lot of students think it's a scam when they first hear about it. Um but we'll we'll get into that in a minute. But Joel, I'm gonna turn it over to you. You're on our ATDM team. Obviously, for those listening or those who are familiar with the institute, you probably know something about ATDM. But give us kind of the one-minute rundown, one one to two-minute rundown of what is ATDM, how does it work?

Joel Nester

Again, my name is Joel Nester. I'm the industry engagement coordinator here for the ATDM program. ATDM is a training program unique. There's no other training program like this in the country. So we train folks in our five our our five skilled trades of uh CNC machining, welding, additive manufacturing, non-destructive testing, and metrology or quality control. Um folks will temporarily relocate here to Danville to your point about some people thinking it's a scam. Um the training and the housing comes at no cost. This program is uh fully funded by the US Navy Department of Defense slash war and um IBAS. So, yeah, there is um it's different where folks train for eight hours a day across three shifts. So the training is more like a job. And that's really what we're trying to do is get new blood into these skill trades, um, train them up again. They're not gonna be advanced, but they're gonna have that foundational skill set. So when they show up on a shop floor with these companies that we're working with, um that time to proficiency is drastically reduced. We've tried to quantify that, and you know, it's it's different per trade, but um, it's anywhere from eight months to a year that companies have told us that it reduces the training on site. So it's not a scam.

The Skills Gap And Training Risks

Caleb Ayers

Yeah, that's that's the message. That's the one we keep hitting home and not a scam. This is real. Um so I guess for for you guys, tell me a little bit about the um, I guess people say recruitment, retention, and then you you've you mentioned training, Joel. Recruitment, retention, and training challenges your company has had with these skilled positions, um, kind of as a as a backdrop for how how you found ATDM.

Ashley Webb

Well, I can talk about uh training from a uh the perspective of Vulcan Tool Company. Vulcan uh was founded in 1916. And in the up through the the 60s and 70s, the primary way the folks would come in is they would come in an apprenticeship program that was run completely by Vulcan. Literally a classroom in the building, um, all of the schooling happening um later in the day. They had a place down in the basement where the apprentices could work and train on equipment, and then they would go to the classroom in the afternoon, and at certain points they would go out and work with folks on the floor. Huge investment. But what they also had at that point in time was some unwritten rules. In Dayton, Ohio, there were about five companies that had big apprenticeship programs. And if you didn't, if you signed up for that apprenticeship program and you didn't follow through as an apprentice, the ramifications were you couldn't get hired by any of those five companies. And if you ran a small shop and you hired people that had washed out, so to speak, of the apprenticeship programs, not followed through, not done what they said they would do when they signed up to become an apprentice, you could get cut off from getting subcontracts from the big five machining companies in town. And I'm not saying that that's right, but what I'm saying is there were repercussions and there was leverage on the folks that came in to follow through and get a return on the investment for the people that invested in them. Today there's nothing like that. There are a lot of different programs to train, and you can spend a lot of money training somebody, and you have no guarantee that you're gonna get a return on that investment. So, one of the exciting things for our company regarding ATDM is that because we don't have a huge upfront investment, whether we're sending somebody here or if we're hiring somebody out of ATDM, if they come to Dayton, Ohio and they don't want to work for us anymore, or they, you know, get an offer of a dollar more an hour from a shop down the street, I'm not gonna be excited about it because if they're a good person, obviously they were because we hired them, we don't want to lose them. But I'm I'm not losing a huge investment in training that ATDM and the Navy has taken that burden. So that's one of the things that just from a dollars and cents, business owner perspective, I'm excited about. And just like you said, saving a year, it's not just the knowledge, it's also the coming to work, the showing up on time. I mean, the fact that you have to come to class all but what, like two days out of 16 weeks, or you or you you get asked to leave the ATDM program. I mean, if somebody makes it through ATDM, they're gonna come to work someplace. You know, maybe they won't like working for our company, which I think they will, um, but you know, that's okay. But they're gonna come to work and be ready to work and are motivated. I mean, they came to Danville, Virginia to do the work. So if I can get them to come to Dayton, Ohio, my expectation is they're gonna keep coming to work. And as long as I keep up my end as an employer and provide work for them, provide a good work environment, provide the tools they need to do the job, provide uh additional training and provide uh growth opportunities, um, I'm excited about having a long-term relationship with employees coming from ATDM.

John Duncan

Just to piggyback on what he was talking about with the apprenticeship programs, because Penn United has their own apprenticeship programs. And we're a little probably more unique than some companies because we have a 17,000 square foot facility that's dedicated enough to training. Similar to here, now not to this magnitude, right? But um we have the same equipment in there to train. Now, the skills gap as I mean, probably over the past 10 years has gotten pretty rough, right? Um so common to ATDM allows us with you know, coming out of here, we're giving up to two years credit for the apprenticeship, right? So now that four-year apprenticeship for a machinist program is cut down to two years where they can receive their journey workers' papers. Now, Penny and I did now we have seen just what you said. Um, that's the bad part of it. You know, you train individuals and we've watched them leave after they get their journey workers' papers, right? But we have had the apprenticeship program in place uh since 1979, I believe, and it has continued. Uh we have had success with it, um, but right now we have had trouble just hiring people with any type of skills. We've actually we've actually started a program where we bring individuals in with no experience. They spend eight weeks with us, and we train them from the basics and give them the start to get on the shop floor, right? Um, and as well as coming here with ATDM, it's you know that's what we're looking for is to get students from here to continue their apprenticeship, and they've got two years. We can bring them in, put them on the shop floor, they're not lost, right? And then we can continue their training from there. Um, but it is a challenge. That's one of the biggest challenges we've had. But the ATDM program is is is very it's very well run, and the students coming out of here are they're ready to they're ready to come to work, and then we can continue that training with them.

Jordan Smith

So if I could uh add, coming from a student perspective, um I think the biggest thing like you guys have talked about is I had no experience in a machine shop before coming to ATDM, and I come here, I get 600 over 600 hours of training, uh, which was a a big help when it comes to applying to jobs because a lot of places they don't want to hire someone who's never worked in the industry at all. So being able to come here for four months, get 600 hours of training, and then when I go, I go to my employer, and then we still train obviously for the job, but it's nice to have that previous experience going in.

Why This Career Fair Works

Slade Gardner

Yeah, recruitment's an expense. Recruitment is difficult. It takes time, it takes personnel, planning. A lot of times, if you're doing recruitment on your own, it's a chaotic and scattered process. ATDM gives us an efficiency of identifying pre-vetted candidates that come with a certificate of training, that sometimes come with a personal endorsement. I've gotten to know many of the instructors and the leaders here at ATDM. And we have confidence that if we hire from the talent pool at ATDM, that we're starting off with an employee that is ready for the training program that they'll receive at Big Metal Additive. Um We've hired from all the different curriculums. We've hired from three different curriculums here at ATDM: CNC machining, welding, and additive manufacturing. What we do at Big Metal Additive is an aggressive combination of all of those things to meet rigorous Navy standards. So we really do need cerebral, intelligent employees that can identify issues as they arise, record information as they go. It's a demanding job. And the recruitment opportunities that we have with Career Fairs here are incredibly valuable, especially for a small company, um because it gives us an efficiency of meeting, vetting, and then hiring candidates in ways that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

Caleb Ayers

And you guys talked talked about this a little bit in in your answers, but just for those listening. So ATDM, um companies can hire, or I should say, adults can go through this program without a job lined up and basically secure their job while they're here, and there's whole teams of people that are here to help them secure those jobs, and that's what we are here for today with the career fair. Um companies can also send current workers or upscale workers through through the program. So there's there's different ways to do that. On the career fair, obviously you all are here for that, and I know have been here for many of those. Tell me about kind of just what that experience is like and how and Joel, you can chip in on this too. I mean, how how does that different from other you know, career fair or other um job candidate type of events you've been to?

John Duncan

I think for us at at Penn United, um, I think we can attest to, and and I, even though I'm in the training area, I work closely with our corporate recruiter, uh, Kristen Bastaye, who travels to a lot of career fairs, um, that type of thing. I think one of the things we like most about here is how it's set up with the students who are just starting, and you have students who are going to be graduating, right? And it I think a lot of times we have run into where we talk to people who are just starting out, and then we get to talk to them again at the next career fair. You know, so you kind of you kind of make that relationship early on, their interest, where they're at, you know, and see how they progress through the program, how they're they're liking what they're doing and getting to talk to them again. Um, so and there's a there's a lot of students. Um, so you do get to talk to a a lot of uh students that um and I think someone mentioned earlier if if someone's willing to relocate, I mean that's that's a that's a pretty big commitment, right? So if they're gonna relocate, chances are you're probably gonna have a an employee who does show up, like you were saying, um and continues to work with you um as far as that goes. But uh the career fair itself I think is is really well put together. Um and like I said, you get to talk to a lot of people, and I like the aspect of of getting to talk to certain people, you know, a couple times. And then we communicate, uh we just talked to several today that have communicated since the last career fair through email, through phone conversation. So and we got some interviews set up today to to talk to those folks.

Ashley Webb

So yeah, it's nice to have uh interview time set aside afterwards to be able to do some one-on-ones. I think it's also nice to come in. The these students have signed up for a program in one of one of the five programs, and for us, uh we've hired from the metrology and uh quality program, but that's not a current need. So we're able to put out plain plainest day on our table. We're looking at machinists and welders today. And when somebody comes up, if if if we don't, if they don't see the sign, we're able to ask, which program are you in? And we can carry on the conversation and efficiently uh move on and make a move on to the next table if that's not one of the ones that we're looking at. And it's just good to know understanding what's in the curriculum, understanding that if somebody with a great personality comes up and says, Hey, how are you doing, and uh starts asking questions about our company, and then I say, Well, what programming are you in? And you know, we're just looking for machinism welders, but it's somebody from um additive and say, Hey, you seem like a great guy, uh, a great gal. What do you think about just coming and doing mill work? And we don't have a whole lot of additive, but we're willing to grow in that area. Would you be interested in talking more? And if they are great, if they're not, that's okay too. But um, just kind of knowing that you're talking about tranches of candidates that have certain interests is kind of useful as opposed to going to a job fair where often you're just every conversation is starting from complete zero.

John Duncan

And just to, and I don't mean to interrupt, just to you just kind of spark something with me. A lot of times, um they are willing to, hey, you know what, I'll be willing to try something else. You you talk to them about the other things you do. That's that's the other thing that uh that we like. It's not you know, if someone's in additive, they also get some mill experience, right? Um, so hey, we got a mill opening, CNC mill, but our additive program is probably growing, which will probably you know be an opportunity for you. So that that is cool that that uh they're willing to do other things as well.

Joel Nester

I'll just add too um from the ATDM side of the house, I think one of the things that's beneficial for companies like Big Metal, Vulcan, and Penn United is this this training is 16 weeks. We're roughly starting a cohort every eight weeks, and a cohort is graduating every eight weeks, roughly. So you might come to a career fair, and we have career fairs every two months. You might come to a career fair one time and there isn't any candidates, but it's this whole we it's a constant flow of students that are coming through. So I I think you know it's always worth coming back, I think, because there's gonna be a new crop of students at every other career fair. I mean at every career fair. And like I said, we do the career fairs roughly every two months. To John's point, we try to give students the opportunity as they go through the program, the way our calendar is that every student that's here has the opportunity to participate in two career fairs. So they might be at the beginning of their training, and like John said and Ashley said, that you know, they can build relationshifts with them, continue that, but then at that next career fair they're about ready to graduate, and you've already got that affinity and that connection with that student. So I just like you know, we're trying to get more and more companies tapped into this, and it's not just a one-time thing, but there's gonna be a new group of students here roughly every eight weeks.

Slade Gardner

The career fairs have improved every single time we see it. Um they started out strong and they keep getting better. We know what to expect. We know that we're gonna start the day talking to the candidates that are going to finish the soonest. We know that we're gonna get a chance to talk about talk to candidates who are just beginning. And uh Joel, to your point, I've met uh starting candidates knowing I'll be back in four weeks, I'll speak to them then. And you've even found the candidates that I wanted to speak for me, and you've brought them to my table because I knew I wanted to speak to Kobe, and I knew I wanted to speak to Jade. And they've become strong employees at Big Metal Additive. Um we know what the schedule is, it's a tight, efficient schedule, it's well organized, and uh typically we get a standardized resume which allows us uh to understand quickly the credentials of the candidate. Who are we speaking to, what's their background? And I place great value in the coaching that goes involved uh with that. But I think that the candidates have been prepared to speak to companies, which is important because they have to know what questions to ask, they have to know how to show their interest in a meaningful way, and we have to get to the point of the conversation quickly. And I can tell that the candidates have been prepared that way. So that's a strong point as well.

Joel Nester

Yeah, and just to add to that, um you know, we're just going more into what the with the training and what is provided here at ATDM. So we can we do do the technical training on that specific skill, um, which is the main point. But we have kind of full wraparound services to support students while they're here, so our career service. Team from the time a student starts, they're working with them on a lot of soft skills. They're doing mock interviews with students, teaching them how to you know show up for an interview. So those types of things. So there's a lot of uh services that are provided to the students as well, so that when they come to these career fairs, we want them to be prepared as possible as they're going to talk to all these different companies.

What Sets ATDM Graduates Apart

Jordan Smith

Yeah, like you said, uh for students, they they have us do mock interviews, they have us create a resume, and then they we work with the uh ATDM team in order to perfect our resumes and learn exactly what we should say and how we should talk to employers. Um and as a lot of people know, the current job market, it's really hard to just reach out to a company online because the odds of you hearing back is um you know pretty slim. It's kind of hard. So what was nice about having this career fair was that we were able to talk to real companies and real people in person who are looking for exactly what we're trying to get into. So that was really helpful.

Caleb Ayers

I think this program rules. That's generally my uh my my take. A T DM is is cool and awesome. The more I the more I think about it, the more that's the conclusion I've come to. I guess tell me a little bit for for each of you about kind of how once the students get to your facility, to your organization, what is different about ATDM graduates? What is what's what sets them apart? Why do you keep coming back to these career fairs? To not obviously the you know the the career fair process is efficient, the you working with ATDM is efficient, but why do you keep wanting to hire these students specifically?

John Duncan

Well, I think for for us at Penn United, um just the fact that uh a lot of the things that was just mentioned here now, the soft skills, the when they come to us, they are ready to work. I also uh early on, I know Joel had set up for me to come down. I actually talked to instructors and looked at curriculum. You know, we wanted to see exactly what was coming out of here, you know, what students had when they come out of here. Um, so I think that's a big thing for us. Um they're ready to come to work. Uh the point system, I think, you know, and listen, it's and I think we all deal with it as employers, you know. Sometimes, I mean, we joke a little bit now. It's half the battle is is showing up and coming to work, you know, it's just kind of where we are right now with with that. And you joke around with it, but it is a it is a reality, right? So, you know, I think those students are committed. You know, they're gonna be students who, you know, as employers for you are gonna come to work. They're gonna show up. They have those soft skills. Um, and for us, you know, like I said, doing our own training as well there, we can we can pick up. That's two years. The skills gap, we can train people, but that takes time, right? And you know, having people come in with that experience, you know, two years roughly, year and a half, two years, that's two years sooner that we can get them where we want them. Um and that's a great, a great benefit for us. Um, so I think that's that's one of the the major things for us is just how ready they are to come to the workforce.

Ashley Webb

16 weeks of training, I mean they they're ready to get after it. And they they they want to work. They they want to get, they've been in the classroom and they want to they want to put what they've learned to use. And so that's that's motivating. I think the other thing, like there's nowhere, I know this isn't exactly on point with the question, but there's nowhere else where we could go outside of Dayton, Ohio to find folks that would be interested in potentially coming to Dayton, Ohio and working. Like the number of potential people that are here, I couldn't find that anywhere else. I couldn't take a trip to any other metro area or any place else and find the the number of possibilities of people that would consider coming to Dayton, Ohio. And part of coming to Dayton, Ohio, that's it's back to that commitment piece. Like, if you're gonna move to Dayton, Ohio for this job, like you've you're making a commitment to Vulcan Tool. And it's also an opportunity for us to show our commitment to the new employee. Like our our latest hire, uh Joanna, she, you know, we helped her get an apartment. We helped her uh, I mean, I had I had two of my machine repairmen go do a highly technical job of removing a washer and dryer from my aunt's new house because she liked her washer and dryer from her old house and she didn't have a use for the ones that she got with her new house. So I sent two machine repairmen over with the the truck and the lift gate to go pick up a washer and dryer and take them to Joanna's apartment because she didn't have one yet. And it's like, what do you need? I don't have there's a washer and dryer in the building, but I don't, you know, there's room for mine in an apartment, so I think I'm gonna go buy one. I'm like, hold on, I got you. And like, literally, that's what the guys I sent two guys out to do that for four hours, like between the two of them. It's like two hours, two guys, and there's a little bit of an expense there, but it's just an opportunity to show Joanna that like your family, like we're not a big company, we're 25 employees, hoping to be 35 to 50 uh in the next couple of years with hires like Joanna. And like she made the effort to come to Ohio, we're gonna make the effort to make her feel welcome, and hopefully it's gonna be a mutually beneficial relationship for a long time.

The Pitch To Defense Manufacturers

Slade Gardner

Big Metal Additive works for the most demanding customers. We work for customers in the Department of War. We work for all of the aerospace primes, we work for NAFC, we work for AFRL, Spaceworks. Um ATDM grads, I think they're comfortable working in that environment. You work for the Department of War. I started my career in Skunkworks. I knew early I wanted to develop weapon systems for the warfighter. That's what we do. We are going to fight the war from the factory. Uh supporting the warfighter is just as much about industrializing war fighting equipment as anything else. And we have to have a robust manufacturing infrastructure in the United States to do that. I feel confident that when I interview candidates at ATDM, they've been hired from a NAFC training program, and they want to do that also. That's really valuable. Um I also know that they have been pre-vetted. I know they're going to pass our background check, our drug test. I know that they're going to um uh meet fundamental requirements of the position. And it's a demanding position. But that's what I've found a higher level of confidence that the c uh uh uh incoming employee is going to be ready to go for the mission of big metal additive, which is supporting the warfighter.

Caleb Ayers

We'll wrap up here with this last question. You guys might not want other companies to know about ATDM, so you can keep getting all the all the students, I'm not sure. But if you theoretically were going to pitch why another company in in the defense industrial base should consider using ATDM as a as a tool, as whether to send students through or whether to hire students out of the program, what would be kind of the the pitch or the the rationale you would give them?

John Duncan

I guess going back to what we might have touched upon already, just the the readiness of where they're at when they come out of there, um out of the program. And I know I I would probably be able to say if if Penn United, we're uh like I said, we're a little bit different with our training center, and we do have about 650 employees right now. Um and we have that gap of you know, we've been in business for 55 years, so we got people who are retiring, and and we need to we need to fill those spaces, and that's that's uh uh kind of a thing that we're looking at, like, okay, we need to fill these spaces, right? Um, and that skills gap is a real thing, and and I think this does help with that and gets those people there a little sooner than than what we possibly uh could do you know on our own or or uh even and I guess I would say if we didn't have a training center, we probably would send people here for training. Um so I guess I could could word it that way that the program is very efficient, very good, that we would probably send people here, our employees, for training for that time frame, if we didn't have our own facilities as well, right? But um, so I guess that would be a little bit of a you know how I would look at it from our aspect. Um, but just getting people out of here, out of the program when they're completed, coming to us really, you know, that that helps us along and that that speeds that up for us to fill those positions that we need.

Joel Nester

In my role as the industry engagement coordinator, I've been fortunate enough to be on Penn United shop floor, I've been on Vulcan's shop floor, haven't been to Big Metal yet, but my colleague Ray will be there next week. Um, and I always, you know, my role is to get more companies involved in this program. You know, I have these calls a lot of times with folks, and you know I come across as a salesman, but I'm not really trying to sell anything. I just want companies to know. So if anyone's listening, um we want more companies involved. I think today we had what's one of our largest career fairs that keep getting bigger. We're pretty much tapped out of space in our current ballroom, so we'll have to figure out um how we get more companies here, but we'll do that, don't worry about that. Um but I've been I've had the opportunity to be on these shop floors, and I continue to go around and get more companies, get them aware, get them to understand, try to get them here on site because on a call, a lot of times, again, students think it's a scam. Companies a lot of times don't believe it until they get here on site and see it in person and see the training, walk the floors, talk with our instructors, and um so yeah, we obviously I think there's 10,000 companies in the defense industrial base, this number I've been told. We we had 40 companies here, we have maybe 800 companies in our directory, so um, we're definitely trying to grow that, and we are literally here to be a resource for all these companies from the primes all the way down to the small mom and pop shop to provide them. You know, we're just a piece of the puzzle, right? We're not we're not gonna solve this whole uh workforce gap that they say, you know. I hear 150,000, 250,000, whatever it is that we need over the next 10 years, we're a piece of the puzzle. And uh I just thank you guys so much for the support you've had for ATDM. And it's awesome that we have students here. Um, where are you from originally? I grew up in Illinois. Illinois? Yeah. So, and now you're in Denver, Colorado. Yep. That's awesome. That's what it's all about. Yep.

John Duncan

And I would just real quick, I would just like to say, and I'm sure you guys feel the same way. Uh, the relationship that we've built with ATDM and Joel is our primary contact. I mean, he does a fantastic job with communication, um, talking with us, setting things up, um, coming to visit, all that stuff. So I would I would like to thank you, Joel, personally for helping us out and uh making sure the experience is yeah.

Joel Nester

I like to say, like, I'm in the relationship business, but really you guys are all my friends now, right? So I'm always trying to build uh my friend network. So again, it's been a pleasure working with you guys in my short time here. I've only been with ATDM for a year and a half.

Caleb Ayers

When we talk about, at least for me, I'm on the communications team, when we talk about ATDM, it's easy to tell the student story. You know, the student who had didn't really have a career path, it took it four months to have a career path. That's the easy story to tell. But I think sometimes we we forget to tell the employer story of how much of a difference this program can make for a company by how whether they're hiring one or two or twenty or fifty graduates, you know, that they're that um, I know that you guys use the word that that level set training, you know, that it's you guys know exactly the companies who are engaging with us know exactly what they're getting. There's no there's no questions about what the previous training was, what the career experience was. Um as and as you talked about, it's like you know that it's it's an recruiting is an expense, and this basically helps you have a quantifiable pool of embedded candidates already available to you. It's cool. It's cool to see the impact that this is making.

Joel Nester

I think it was one of the first fairs you came to. I don't know if you remember telling me this or not, but you're like, I'm done with Indeed, I'm done with Glassdoor, right? Because you didn't know what you were getting, and then you came here, and I think it's been pretty beneficial for you.

Slade Gardner

100%. We've completely left those other platforms. I have recommended the Career Fair to other companies, to other business leaders. And what I say is to better use of your resources, you're going to get an efficient um introduction, efficient follow-through, and efficient uh closure to your recruitment and hiring needs for these specific manufacturing trades, these skills. And uh we'll continue to make recommendations that other companies, I think it's just a good business decision to participate.

Joel Nester

And Ashley, I was up uh about a month ago now, up in Dayton, Ohio, and Ashley and I went to a talent pipeline meeting together. Ashley ended up winning the Teammate of the Day Award. But I'd been talking with companies and no one had really, you know, exchanged business cards or anything with me. But Ashley got up there as the teammate of the day and told his story about how beneficial ATDM was to hiring Joanna, and he went through the whole process with that. And as soon as Ashley got done talking, 15 people came up to me, hey, here's my car, let's talk on Monday. So, you know, it's all about the relationship, and it's all about, you know, we're all in this together, right? It's not a competition. Um, I mean, it might be in some regards, but we're all just trying to build up what's needed for this nation.

Final Takeaways And Wrap

Ashley Webb

One of the other things that uh I mean, at first, to your point, like I'm a little shy. Oh, do I even want to tell the people down the street about ATDM? Because like I want these people to come work for me. But the thing is, is in Dayton, Ohio, there was a point in time when for auto making, Dayton, Ohio was second only to Detroit. And it was mainly a GM town. Uh at one point we had six or seven GM plants. Um, at this point, all of those plants have closed down or repurposed into some other manufacturing. And for a period of time, prior to me uh becoming the owner of Paradigm Industrial, which is the the we bought the assets of Vulcan Tool um right before COVID. And um, so anyway, go back 10 years, right 10 10, 12 years, right before uh that I had run for county commission in in Montgomery County in Ohio. And as part of running for county commission, um I focused some time visiting businesses. And what I found out was even though the word on the street and what all the parents were telling their kids and things like that was that manufacturing is dead, there's no future in manufacturing because all the plants were closing down in Dayton and all that. Well, what I found out was that wasn't true at all. There was a lot of, there were a lot of job shops or uh contract manufacturing companies, a lot of smaller manufacturing that were plants that were not giant two, three, five million square foot GM plants, but they're producing, they're making parts and taking advantage of the infrastructure in Dayton, Ohio that supported all those plants for years and still existed, whether it was heat treat, uh black oxide, coatings, paint, all of those things that you need is extras after you're done making the part, you need something else put on. We have all that in Dayton, so that's great. But the message was still going to young people and other folks that were looking for career change that manufacturing was dead. And so what's exciting for me is that even if somebody across the street comes to ATDM and hires somebody and they decide to go there instead of coming to Vulcan Tool, they are in our ecosystem now. They're in the greater Dayton area. And guess what? People don't work places forever anymore. I mean, there are lots of people that came to Vulcan Tool uh after World War II and they got back fighting and they came back and they worked for 30 or 35 years after getting out of the service. That's not the case today. People move around all the time. And so if we get more folks into our ecosystem, our manufacturing ecosystem locally in Southwest Ohio, that's actually a good thing for us in the long run. If you have a little bit, if you if you if you take your short short-term vision back a little bit and widen the scope a little bit, to have qualified machinists, welders, non-destructive testing folks, metrology folks, additive folks come to Southwest Ohio is great. So really we should be telling the people in our neighborhoods. Because the thing is, is if if we get somebody else in our community to hire from ATDM, when that person decides to make a career change, or or maybe things are going great at your competitor or like manufacturer down the street, maybe they're going great there, but they just don't have the opening for a supervisor position or something that you have, there's other people in the ecosystem that can do the work. So there's benefit to telling the people that are near you.

Caleb Ayers

I think we could go on talking about this a long time, but I think I think you guys got some people to interview and we got places to do. So I appreciate you guys taking the time. Again, this program rules is the uh the moral. We'll we'll give them rules. That would be the time. Yes. Uh that'll be the episode title. All right. Thank you guys for being here.

John Duncan

Thank you. Thank you.