Ep 90 | An Apprenticeship that Pays?

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We still offer a pension to every craft worker who comes in. So that gives them ability to pay into it. The company will match up to a certain percentage. And then that pension stays with you forever. And when you retire, it's not subject to the stock market and things like 401ks are. So if your goal is not to work forever, you know, like most people and you wanna wanna retire and you wanna spend, you know, your later years doing the fun stuff, you pay into that pension and it's there for you for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

That's an incredible opportunity for a person just graduating high school. I think that it's that trajectory of this is gonna get better and I'm gonna learn more and make more and feel secure. I mean, that's I think the the thing that parents want for their kids. But kids, if they're if they're in that mindset, I think they're wanting that for themselves too. Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambi County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. Options and money. So how do you help your kid have both after they graduate from high school? College is expensive and time consuming, and job options are entry-level with no upward trajectory. My next guests are in the talent acquisition department of Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Today they're going to share how students can be paid to learn a trade and become skilled in a craft and super employable. Skill builders, option makers, talent seekers, Rob Wise, and Ben Weldon. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

So Pascagoula, Mississippi sounds real far away. How long was your drive today?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

It took us right about an hour and a half to get here. And we took it nice and easy.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

That's not bad. That's like Pensacola to, you know, the far end of Mobile. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Destined Navarre, somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Yeah, we just think of it as really far away. Okay, so the shipbuilding program. I kind of have some rudimentary questions if that's allowed. True. So what kind of ships are we talking about? Military ships, shipping container ships?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Primarily we build Navy vessels for the for the uh Navy and the Coast Guard. We build Coast Guard vessels for Homeland Security. Right now we have five classes of ships, but primarily we're a serial shipyard with four classes.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Four classes. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Four classes being that we have amphibious uh style ships, we have surface combatant ships, and we have the Coast Guard contract for the Coast Guard. So we have equipment moving ships, we have ships that are destroyers, so those are our you know more uh exciting vessels to work on. So they can carry any any bit of equipment and sailors, say about twelve hundred to two thousand and all the way down to about a hundred and fifty would wow okay ranging from eight hundred and fifty feet long to or I think our smallest is about five hundred feet.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Wow. Those are okay, those are big. Okay, so here's a secondary rudimentary question is have I don't know if you've ever seen the videos where they show the rocket ships being built and they take the large pieces and they work on them separately in different large warehouses by specific teams who are specialized in that particular part, and then they come together and put them together. So obviously you can tell I'm making a movie in my mind about what's happening here. So how how close am I?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So yeah, I mean, that's almost exactly how ships are built. You know, they're they're constructed. We start from nothing from concept. We have thousands of different employees doing different jobs that are building those ships piece by piece. And then it's basically a giant game of Legos, right? You're putting them together. They're moving. We have what we call up on the hill, down to the water. So they start out up on the hill. That's when they're still, you know, putting little pieces together and making those bigger pieces. And as they move through the yard, they become more and more like a ship until finally they're in the water and you can actually see a ship there.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Oh, that's exciting. I feel like it would be satisfying to have a job where you make something and then you see it come together and you can point at it and go, I did that. That's what I did today.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Oh, yeah. You you see a great sense of pride in our shipbuilders because they spend years at a time building those ships. So, you know, our smallest ships might take two to three years to build, and our largest ones may take what, five to seven somewhere in there. So, you know, you may spend your whole career 30 years out there, you know, and you might see what 10, 12 ships built, something of that nature. But you may work on 20 ships. They take a lot of pride because they get to see them come from nothing to a ship that sails off and supports our Navy.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

That's really cool. So, how many different trades do you offer in your apprenticeship program? Because obviously it takes a lot of skills to make these ships. So you've got a lot of different departments that people can plug into after they graduate high school.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

We have uh 13, I believe, in our apprenticeship program, ranging from welders to painters to electrical engineers. So pretty much any craft we do out there, we have an apprenticeship program to support it.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Is there any one that you don't have that people would need to know about?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

As far as apprenticeship programs that we don't have, we cover all the basic crafts. I think what a lot of people want is an engineering apprenticeship program, which is something we don't offer. We typically hire engineers out of four-year universities or designers out of community colleges and things of that nature.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

And what do you find is the job demand for the apprenticeship apprenticeship programs that you have?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

So it's kind of important to make a distinction there in our apprenticeships, because we have something called HA, which is a helper apprentice, and then we have an RA, which is a regular apprentice. The uh RA program is a Department of Labor sponsored apprenticeship program, and it has a lot of name, name brand power with it, a lot of demand. When we open that up, we're gonna get thousands of applicants. So it is a very competitive program to get into, has a little bit higher qualifications. You have to take things like the ACT work keys to get into it. You know, it's it's it's limited space because it's limited classroom space that we had to teach. The helper apprentice program, we hire more entry-level and up there. So that one same thing, we get thousands and thousands of applicants over the course of a year, but it's a little bit easier to get into because we're not having to be concerned with classroom space and some of the other qualifications that go into it. But overall, we're seeing, I mean, tens of thousands of applications every year.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

So for the HA apprenticeship program, is that open all the time? And the other one is only open during specific seasons?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Correct. So the HA is you know, it's rolling requisitions, is what we call. So we we hire all year long. When we open back up in January after a shutdown, we open up and we hire HAs all year long. The RA program runs uh it has specific course lengths. So we generally hire it a couple different times a year for that program. So they have, you know, they may start a class in January and then they may start another class towards the mid of the year, but they have different uh entry rights for that.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

I want to come back to what the HA, I'm going to try very hard to get these letters correct for the program. So what the HA apprenticeship benefits are. But I first I wanted to ask you, Rob, you graduated from the electrical apprenticeship and you've been at the company for like 26 years now. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

So this year will be I'll be uh 27 years.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

That's incredible. So what role did that apprenticeship play in the trajectory of your career?

SPEAKER_00 8:01

So I I came to shipbuilding with a bachelor's degree, and it was a communications uh bachelor's degree with a minor in advertising and another minor in uh public relations. And I had a a father that had come out of a machinery background trades, and uh and he he was pestering me that I needed to get my hands dirty, I need to work.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Um it's a very dad thing to say.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

I tried three years doing commercial art and graphic design and uh advertising over in Jacksonville, Florida. Um, and I'm I don't know if we mentioned it, but I'm from Pensacola. So uh came back and I looked around in the area and was looking for entities. He he was a machinist at the uh Navy base. So I looking around for programs short of going back to school, and I wasn't too keen on the idea with a bachelor's going into a trades program at the time. I think it's you know something I look back and I kind of lament. I probably should have done that.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Do you feel like it was stigma or why why were you?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

It was absolutely stigma. It was the idea that I was going backwards to go forwards, and I wanted to be paid and learn at the same time. So, and I I'm a quick learner and I'm a hard worker. So had a friend of mine that had heard about Ingalls growing up in Pensacola, you don't typically hear about a shipbuilder that's over in Mississippi, and so I had heard through friends and family, you know, Ingalls is something that's been around for at the time, it probably been around for 60 years. We've been there for 85 now. So having having heard of it and thinking about it, I went ahead and took a chance and it took me three months uh to get on out there in the apprenticeship. Like Ben's saying, it's it's always been competitive. The apprenticeship, I believe, has been around since 57. So it's it is extremely um competitive to get into it. And it took me a while, and we didn't have the kind of HA programs that we have nowadays, and the kind of ability for somebody to step out of high school and go out there. And and now it's it's uh you know, I don't want to say it's easier, but the tracks that we have and the different pathways to get out there is there's many more now, much like other businesses. We're we're clamoring, trying to find ways to to find folks that that really want to work and uh really want to make good money. And uh we we've found ways to make that happen. So for myself, I I wanted to learn a trade and I wanted to make money because I didn't want to go backwards, and that's what that's what Ingalls offered me. I was finally able to get into it. And after I think four or maybe 500 applicants, I was able to become one of the at the time we were hiring classes of about 40. So I was able to get into that program and stuck it out. It was a four-year electrical program. Uh, graduated as a marine electrician, and it was it was really good. It was, it's, it was lucrative back then, and it's certainly lucrative in the uh job economy today.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

And it sounds like it's a little bit more accessible to freshly graduated high school students.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Very much. You do not have to go my route and incur a lot of student debt by going to uh college and then deciding to go into the trade route. I would highly recommend folks that are on the college track to look at us for internships, to look at us for uh different ways to uh come start their professional career, but absolutely right out of high school, and uh we certainly know lots of folks that do that on an annual basis. Uh last year, I think, and correct me, Ben, if I'm wrong, about two-thirds maybe of our applicants were were coming in with no skills and uh we're training them.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Wow, that's really incredible. I know a lot of young people are more mindful than say 20 years ago about company culture. And I feel like if you're approaching your 27th year, you might be the guy to ask about that. How would you describe Ingels company culture to a new high school graduate?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

So for the what we call a craftsman coming in, which wouldn't be the college track, but the the craftsman culture is one that certainly shows, uh, and I'm gonna date myself, but like uh reality shows such as uh Monster Garage and that kind of thing that have uh come up since the 90s have I think made more of like you were saying, with a stigma. I think they've taken away that stigma.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Um I mean, that's just my opinion, but certainly social media shows folks doing things more with their hands. And I think it's exciting uh to see a younger culture and a younger generation grab onto wanting to work with their hands, become craftsmen, right? Craftswomen, and to learn how to develop a talent and a skill that not everybody else has. I certainly see that when I look around on YouTube and when I look around on some of the, there's always somebody out there showing me how they produce something with next to nothing. And like Ben was saying, with shipbuilding, we take it all the way from a sheet of steel and we're making a military Navy vessel, and there's something that's exciting about and different about the shipbuilding industry, and certainly Pensacola is no um stranger to maritime and and navy yards and and smaller fishing vessel shipyards around here. What we're building is eight stories tall at the biggest ship, and uh and you know the tonnage on it, I don't even begin to to know what the tonnage is on one of our ships, but I do know this that years ago, and I want to say it was around 2009, maybe of maybe later than that, I mean earlier than that, we got a Guinness Book World Record for moving the largest man-made item on land having been built and moved. We every time we move one of our LHAs, we probably could have Guinness Book come back out and certify it's it's it's 847 feet long and eight stories tall, and we move it on rail system to our dry dock, and then they offload it into the water.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

So students, and uh that's something I was impressed with is when you're on these ships and you're working on them, just how large and how how big of an item it is. Our sister shipyard in Newport News builds CBNs, which are the carriers, and they build nuclear class submarines, and they build them in dry docks, so they come and flood those. Our ships are built on land and then moved over to Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

So it sounds like there's a lot of pride and teamwork in the in the culture there.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It takes thousands of people to build one of these ships.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Right. It's not a a one-man job or even a one department job. It's multi it's the whole shebang.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

So Ben, I wanted to ask you more about the HA program. So what are some of the the features and benefits of that program? I think you mentioned or it was mentioned about the marine electrician. Did I get that right?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, that would be our regular apprentice, the RA. The regular.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

See, I have them confused. I need you to set me straight.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

So the the regular or or it's sometimes it's called a registered apprentice. And that's because it's the program itself, the apprenticeship, is registered with the U.S. Department of Labor, and it's a credentialed, it's a credentialed apprenticeship. The other one is an on-the-job training. They do have a couple of classes that the that they would take before they topped out. One would be in a blueprint, they're gonna need to know naval blueprints, and then we're also gonna obviously put them through rigorous safety training before we don't want anybody in our shipyard uh to be set up to be hurt in any capacity. So we're gonna teach them safety, we're gonna teach them blueprints. But that helper apprentice program is not a sanction through the U.S. Department of Labor apprenticeship. It's it's a helper apprenticeship where they come in and learn on the job, but they're earning and learning just as the same as they would be with the other regular apprenticeship. But the registered or regular apprenticeship is is through the U.S. Department of Labor.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

And that's the one that has the you know, the specific time frame to apply.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Right. I guess there's a lot of folks who put a lot more credit to the RA program because it is registered through the Department of Labor. But, you know, when people ask which one should I get into, the RA program's great, right? The whole goal of that is for you to go through the program. You end up as what we call a first class craftsman when you come out. If you come in as an HA, you will follow the same path. And around four years, you know, about the same time that you go for most of our RA programs, you'll be a first-class craftsman, right? So they're different routes to get there, but they both take you to the same place. You know, I think you get a you you come out of the RA program with a diploma. So that's something that people put a little bit more credit to. But at the end of the day, both places get you there as a first class craftsman and uh not only make you ultra employable for us, but anywhere you wanted to go.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

When you say diploma, you're not talking about when you're employee of the week and you get a diploma. You're talking about like an accredited, like it could be counted toward an associate's degree, correct?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Correct. Yeah. You can uh you can take those credits you've gotten in the registered apprentice program and you can basically roll them into an associate's in in whatever field you you'd studied in.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

So for the four-year program, in contrast to like a traditional university scenario where you would go to class and maybe you have a job off campus, right? This is are you getting paid while you're doing this in a way that would support, you know, living?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yes. So I'll I'll let Rob speak a little bit more to it, but you do you get paid while you train at English regardless, whether you come in as an H A or an R A.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

I mean, that's a huge benefit. That's that I could see why that would be a a huge pull for a student who is just wanting to hit the ground running. They are inspired by their favorite YouTubers. I love that you brought that up. I had not even thought about that because I love watching those videos. And I you I think part of the reason we love watching them is because I don't know, some of that stuff's kind of a dying skill, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Absolutely. Yeah. The uh and and what's unique about a a ship and especially a warship, that you know, there's we're not mincing words where you're building a United States Navy vessel and a United States Coast Guard vessel. So so these ships have a lot of redundancy built on them. They're they're very unique in that they have to to go into harm's way. They they have to be able to be struck by a combatant and and still operate. Our ships have been tested in wartime and in peacetime. The USS Cole, I don't know if you're familiar with EDG 67, uh, it it kind of kind of overshadowed by the 9-11 uh trade towers, but it it was attacked by uh terrorists uh prior to 9-11, and uh we lost uh 17 sailors on that ship, but we built that ship and uh and it didn't sink. It was tested, and uh we put it back together. I at the time was uh still in my uh apprenticeship, I was about to top out and uh begged to go on night shift so that I could be a part of that. It was during the summer, so I was able to. We have classes that take part during the day as an apprentice, but uh I was able to go on that ship and and work on it just as a sense of pride. So, you know, a lot of uh folks they may be on a track to go into the military, and then like myself, just for whatever reason didn't find myself in the military, but still wanted to feel like I was a part of a mission that contributed to you know the services and certainly providing our services with a piece of equipment that is able to be tested and that is something that uh provides them a sense of security and safety to get in and out of harm's way. That that's something else that that I've always took a lot of pride in what I do.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Absolutely. So the question of working and getting paid while learning, how does that work? What what can a student expect?

SPEAKER_00 20:40

So are we talking a student out of high school or a student out of high school. Okay, so a student out of high school can expect to one, be trained safely. We don't I was in a high school speaking last week, and one of the first questions that I fielded from the students, is this a safe work environment? So we pride ourselves on being a safe work environment. We certainly have uh a lot of safety training they're gonna have to go through, and then they're gonna be placed into a crew. If they come the helper apprentice route, they're gonna they're not going to go into formalized classroom training. The regular apprenticeship is a formalized classroom plus on-the-job training. But like Ben said, we have a limited amount of space that that we have for allowance for that. So a helper apprentice coming out of high school, entering into the job is going to A be certified in some instances. It depends on which helper apprenticeship they come into. If they come in as a welder, they're going to need to obviously learn metallurgy. They're going to have to learn uh how welding takes place. And then we're going to teach them those those different techniques they would need to certify to be able to weld on a navy vessel. We're gonna we're going to certify them to the welding specifications that it takes. If they go into one Of the other crafts, they're going to still go into a training yard where they're going to learn workforce training teaches them anything from insulation to pipe bending to ductwork. The ships, if you think about them like a city, they have everything from a hospital to a fully working dentist office to a cafeteria that serves thousands of people. So they have all of these machinery spaces, berthing areas. All of those take all of the different types of trades that it would take to build a building. It's just they're on a marine vessel. And so we have to teach them how to do each one of those things. So they're going to get some classroom training. We're not going to throw anybody out there with a piece of sheet metal and say, you know, go at it. But they're going to also be in a crew of anywhere, say, from 12 to 20, some odd folks is the average crew size. And they're going to have journeymen, as Ben was talking about. They may be apprentices that have topped out. They may be craftsmen that have come from different parts and areas of the country that come in as first class, but they're going to be taken under the wing of a journeyman and they're going to be lined out on different work. And the unique thing that I like to tell students that are looking to go into work right out of high school is you're going to get hired. And then it might be a year before you are even, if that, talk to about getting a raise, right? So in our structured programs, we it's a pathway to become a first class mechanic or journeyman. And so we'll we're going to hire them, and an HA every thousand hours is going to get an increase. Regular apprentice is on a different path, but like Ben said, they're going to get there at the same time. They have increases every 500 hours. And that's because of a collective bargaining agreement that we work through. But the um the the HAs are going to get that every six months, they're going to be getting an automatic increase. And so that sets them on that pathway to becoming that first class and getting that top pay.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

And employment, if they stay at Engels, you'll have pension, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

I'll let Ben talk to that. We do have pensions. That's one of the things that kind of sets us apart from a lot of employers. You don't find pensions quite often outside of state government, federal government, things of that nature anymore. Or if companies do have them, you're it's only people who have grandfathered into them 20 years ago. We still offer a pension to every craft worker who comes in. So that gives them the ability to pay into it. The company will match up to a certain percentage. And then that pension stays with you forever. And when you retire, it's not subject to the stock market and things like 401ks are. So if your goal is not to work forever, you know, like most people, and you want to want to retire and you want to spend, you know, your later years doing the fun stuff, you pay into that pension and it's there for you for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

That's an incredible opportunity for a person just graduating high school. I think that it's that trajectory of this is gonna get better and I'm gonna learn more and make more and feel secure. I mean, that's I think the the thing that parents want for their kids. But kids, if they're if they're in that mindset, I think they're wanting that for themselves too. I wanted to ask you, is there any employment obligation for the student after they finish either or after they finish the RA apprenticeship? Like, do they have to stay on for so many years?

SPEAKER_01 25:30

No, they do not. We do not. We are an At Will State in Mississippi, so you can come and go as you please. Now, if you make it all the way through the RA program, you'll have four years where you've already paid into a pension. You will be topped out in your pay with opportunities for incentives and overtime and things like that. So the uh, you know, from a financial literacy standpoint, you're not obligated to stay. But most people who go through our RA program, they do end up staying um. Rob's been with us for 26 years. Yes. 26 years. So we have a class of shipbuilder called master shipbuilders, and those are people who have been with us for 40 years, right? And so we have quite a few of those out at the Yeah. So what we see a lot, shipbuilding's hard. It's it's not an easy job. But the people who can make it, you know, a year, two years, three years, if they go through the RA program, they stay for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Wow. I mean most people change jobs about every six years. Right. So to s have more than one person at your company that's been there for 40 years, that is saying something. Now, when a student graduates from high school and they're interested in, you know, participating and they're accepted in the apprenticeship program and they're an Escambia County high school student. Do you find most of them just move over there kind of like they would if they were attending a university, or do they commute?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

So we have a lot of folks who um they come from outside of our 50 mile radius in Pascagoula. And there's people who commute every day from Pensacola. Some people do move over, some people like to be a little bit closer, but we have people come from Pensacola, from New Orleans, from uh Hattiesburg in Mississippi, which are all about an hour to an hour and a half away from Pascagoula. So it's really preference. You do not have to move away. Rob can tell you he's from Pensacola and he can tell you that it's it's not that far. We came here this morning, it's not a bad drive, if especially if you round up a few friends and you come together. I don't I don't think that there's any reason you have to move to Pascagoula and to Mississippi unless you just want to.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Tell me about what Enterprise Rent a Car is doing to help people commute.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

So we have a commuter program through Enterprise, and it's really great, especially if you know if you're coming out of high school, you may or may not have reliable transportation. You can rent a car through Enterprise, and uh if you have you and three or four buddies, you can rent that and basically they will give you a vehicle that can get you back and forth to Ingalls. It's very cost effective. If you rent an SUV, it ends up being around 35 bucks a week.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

They take care of all the maintenance. You know, if something happens to the car, they get you a new one so you're not having to worry about replacing your tires, changing the oil, doing things like that. And uh it's it's really just a great program for people who, you know, if you are going to commute every day and you don't want to put that mileage on your car, you have an option.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

What would you say is the best next step for a parent listening to this episode who wants to explore this option for their kid? Do you take them to Ingalls and do a tour or do they have a conversation with one of you? What do they do?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

So we, I mean, we have a recruiting presence over in this area. So if it is something you're interested in, you can always go to hi.com slash careers and that tells you some of the careers we have. But also, you know, Rob and I would be happy, or someone from our recruitment team would be happy to come back and talk to you in person about it and talk with your with your child about it. And or, you know, they will be an adult by the time they come work for us. But, you know, talk with y'all about it and tell you what the opportunity is and tell you how to get there and what you need to do.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

I love that. Any final thoughts before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Well, if if they are interested, what I would like to see is for them to contact their career counselors in the school system or they can contact their school administration. If they want to have us come over and talk to the students, I would absolutely love to come from a parent-generated need to for us to come. That would be wonderful. But we'll we will absolutely come to the area. I'm already in some of the school systems. West Florida, you know, high school. I was there last week at a job career fair. If there's anybody that wants to have us come and set up a table and talk to the students at job fairs, we're we're willing to do that. And we're willing to do that in a in a more informal setting. If they want to just invite us into the school system uh to set up in a library or in the school, we can come and bring pamphlets and information and hand that out to the student body that is looking for opportunities here and and would like to know what what other opportunities outside the area are available.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Awesome. Well, thank you. I really appreciate y'all coming to talk about this. This was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Thank you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

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