When The Dow Chemical Company needs workers at its Michigan Operations plants in Midland, they don’t have to wait long to have the skilled homegrown talent to fill available job openings. They arrive just-in-time thanks to its partnership with Delta College.
“We don’t want to export talent. No community does,” Delta College Director of Corporate Services Jennifer Carroll told WorkingNation.
Delta College serves the Great Lakes Bay region, which was not immune to the effects of the Great Recession. Michigan’s unemployment rate outpaced the national average and peaked in 2009 at 13.9 percent as the manufacturing sector crumbled.
Delta student Trevor Engwis remembers how bad it got for the region. He grew up in Estey, about 47 miles away from Delta College and 30 miles from Dow Chemical’s headquarters in Midland. “It was a pretty depressed state to try and find any job that was paying anything,” Engwis said. He took some college courses following high school but dropped out and moved to Alaska in 2009 in search of work. The high cost-of-living in Alaska and his brother’s successful completion of Delta's Fast Start would lead him back to his home state.
Spencer Mulder graduated from Delta College's Fast Start in 2017, but a different circumstance led him to Dow. The Midland native grew up with a dream of working as a chemical process operator and he started down that path with Delta College to earn his associate degree. However, he abandoned his education for what he thought would be a promising career in sales for a farm equipment dealership.
The Future of Midland
For the majority of its 121-year history, the world’s second-largest chemical company has been the largest employer in the region. Dow’s long history with Midland surrounding region means that their futures are interconnected. Dow Chemical’s Michigan Operations employs around 3,000 people working in manufacturing and research. The company’s consolidation of Dow Corning, which manufactures silicones, resulted in the announcement of a $6 million expansion of Michigan Operations’ silicones manufacturing unit in 2016. It also signified a major reinvestment in the Midland workforce.“The future of Midland is very important to all of us, and Michigan Operations is one of the largest manufacturing units within Dow Chemical. For us, always attracting top talent is a top priority,” said Lynnette Borrousch, operations director of Midland Silicones for Dow Chemical.
The skills to work as a chemical process operator for Dow Chemical require postsecondary training beyond a high school degree. Typically, Delta College has offered a two-year degree in its academic program where students learn safety protocols and take chemistry and math courses.
Just-in-Time Training
Dow partnered with Great Lakes Bay Michigan Works! and Delta College as a response to the economic downturn when unemployment was high. The result was Delta College’s Chemical Process Fast Start Training Program, an accelerated 13-week training teaches qualified students exactly what they would see in on the manufacturing floor. Fast Start was a way to get skilled workers displaced from the automotive industry back to work.The Fast Start training programs are a departure from other Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in that they are not intended for students fresh out of high school, according to Carroll. It’s a solution for displaced workers who may be stuck in underemployment or have no opportunity for career advancement.
Great Lakes Bay Michigan Works! has a rigorous recruitment and application process to fill the 24 open slots per class at Delta College. Since Fast Start programs begin only on employers’ need to fill job openings, it’s vital that applicants are prepared to handle the curriculum and the lab work. 90 percent of participants are eligible to have their tuition and other expenses covered by Michigan Works.
Fast Start programs are like a full-time job with 40 hours of coursework and instruction per week. Successful completion of the program comes with 23 credit hours which can be applied to an associate degree in chemical process operation.
Engwis and Mulder entered the program with varying levels of technical experience, but according to Carroll, most Fast Start students have never set foot in a chemical processing plant. But what students see at the Midland plant is replicated at the Delta College lab. Through its partnership, students work with the state-of-the-art equipment provided by Dow and gain the real-world training that off-the-street job seekers lack.
“They can look at it, and they can picture themselves there,” Carroll said. “If anybody had any doubts about where they were going to work, the doubts are eliminated after they go on site.”
Receiving instruction from former Dow employees, who have 20 years of experience, also gives students the context they need to prepare for careers with the company. “All the teachers that teach in the Fast Start program are retired from Dow. It made the learning experience that much better because they could relate what they did to what we will see on the job,” said Mulder.
In addition to the courses in chemistry and math, counselors from Delta College and Michigan Works prepare students for their guaranteed interview with Dow. They offer instruction on what Dow is looking for regarding resume writing and interview skills.
Lasting Results
Since 2008, this training model has proven its worth to keep talent at home earning solid pay and benefits. What's more, Fast Start has a graduation rate of more than 90 percent, and the last two cohorts had a 100 percent placement rate.For instance, it took four days after Mulder’s graduation for him to land an entry-level position as a supply chain packager, and Engwis was hired during his training, and he joined his brother to continue his family’s legacy of working at Dow.
“The Fast Start program worked out as good as I could’ve imagined. I got an interview in the middle of class and got hired on the exact side of Dow that I wanted,” Engwis said. “It worked out just perfectly.”
Visit WorkingNation.com to learn about other programs that are working to close the skills gap in the United States.
