Jay, Blackford awarded grant

John Jay Center for Learning will have a new industrial maintenance training program next year thanks in part to nearly $1 million in grant funds that were announced Thursday.
Jay-Blackford Manufacturing Council was awarded a $924,500 grant from the Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development Skill Up initiative to help acquire equipment and develop the program.
The grant will be matched by just over $2.3 million from FCC-Indiana, Fort Recovery Industries, POET Biorefining, Sonoco, TLS-By Design, Pennville Custom Cabinets, Tyson Mexican Original, NPR, QEP, 3M, Petosky Plastics, Stanley and Tru-Form Steel. The program will help deal with a skills gap in industrial maintenance jobs — there are more positions available than trained workers to fill them.
It has been a long-term goal of the center to help address the issue, said John Jay executive director Rusty Inman, calling the program a huge win for local employers
“There’s been a big cry from our industries that this is a big need, industrial maintenance seems to be the major need for everybody here,” Inman said.
The program’s curriculum and instruction will be conducted in a partnership with Wright State University Lake Campus, which has had a similar offering since 2008.
“They’ve already got a program in place there and we’ve taken our manufacturers over there and they agree with what they’re doing and like what they’re doing,” Inman said.
The new industrial maintenance program will be taught in the basement of the John Jay but still will be a part of the Jay-Blackford Manufacturing Council. Training equipment will be used to teach hands-on classes for skills like welding, electrical maintenance, programmable logic controller maintenance and hydraulics. Students will be able to work at their own pace through the classes, making it easier for current manufacturing employees to add new skills in the evenings after work.
Jeremy Gulley, president of Jay-Blackford Manufacturing Council and director of teacher effectiveness for Jay School Corporation, said the program can have a huge impact on Jay County.
“I think this could be a game changer for Jay County. I’ve never seen the school system in the John Jay Center work more closely with our employers. That’s the big takeaway for me, nearly 50 percent of our private sector employment in manufacturing, and when our manufacturers succeed our whole community succeeds,” Gulley said. “At the end of the day what we want to achieve is increased wages for Jay and Blackford employees and the only way we get there is increased skills.”
Jay School Corporation added manufacturing classes to Jay County High School four years ago, in a push to train students for careers in advanced manufacturing. Gulley explained that with this new program at John Jay, students from the high school can move on to industrial maintenance training and get good-paying jobs from local employers.
“This is a huge, huge announcement for Jay and Blackford counties," Gulley said. "Isn’t it wonderful to see the John Jay Center do what its founders intended so many years ago? I just want to thank everyone involved."
Inman explained that when the John Jay Center was founded 17 years ago, the original board members had hoped to provide skills training for industry.
“That was the initial intent for John Jay, skills training for industry," he said. "This was a win for past board members, county commissioners, county council, city council, all our officials and really everyone in the county. We have the opportunity to become a regional hub for advanced manufacturing training in Indiana and Ohio.”