12 | TECH BYTES & MANUFACTURING |
UBJ
NEWS
|
12.05. 2014
Iron Yard offers Ruby on Rails engineering class SHERRY JACKSON | STAFF
sjackson@communityjournals.com The Iron Yard Academy, the largest code school in the country, is launching a new, three-month intensive Ruby on Rails engineering class in Greenville beginning Jan. 5. Ruby on Rails, an open-source Web application framework written in the Ruby programming language, is one of the most popular server-side frameworks in the world, the Iron Yard said. At the end of the class, participants “will know how to build fast, production-quality full-stack apps.” “Rails is an in-demand technology and a great framework for learning Web development, and we’ve had tremendous success with Rails in our other locations,” said Roy Schmidt, Greenville campus director. “Giving Greenville-area students another option lets us grow here without sacri-
ficing the teacher-student ratio.” The class will teach everything from foundational concepts to complex frameworks. Some topics like JSON AJAX requests will take weeks to cover, while others, such as the use of Active Helper, will be taught in just a few lectures, Schmidt said. Classes are designed so the curriculum can be adapted by each instructor as tools and languages evolve, but students from each class will graduate with the same core skill set, he said. The class schedule is set up like a typical five-day workweek, with a lecture in the morning and lab time in the afternoon. Friday is an open lab day where students can work with the instructor to catch up on projects or get a head start on the weekend’s homework. The Greenville course will be taught by James
Dabbs, a trained mathematician who, while working on his Ph.D., decided software development was a better choice. He most recently worked as a senior engineer at Emcien in Atlanta and has previously taught the Ruby on Rails classes in Atlanta for the Iron Yard. Cost for the class is $12,000 and includes 12 weeks of intensive code education, mentorship and career support. The Iron Yard was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Greenville. It currently has 10 campuses across the U.S., and beginning Jan. 2015, expects to have more than 400 students enrolled in courses ranging from mobile and front-end engineering, Web design, Python and now Rails engineering. For more information, visit theironyard.com/ academy/rails-engineering.
SC manufacturing outpaces US growth Job gains continue three-year momentum ASHLEY BONCIMINO | STAFF
aboncimino@communityjournals.com South Carolina gained manufacturing jobs for the third year in a row, according to the 2015 South Carolina Manufacturers Register, a database published by Evanston, Ill.-based Manufacturers’ News Inc. The state’s manufacturers added 5,848 industrial jobs for the year ended September 2014, increasing the state’s total jobs in the sector by 2.2 percent from the same period last year. This outpaces national growth of 1.4 percent for manufacturing jobs, as reported by the U.S. Labor Department. Manufacturing jobs in the Palmetto State have increased 5.1 percent since September 2011, compared with national growth of 3.3 percent during the same period. The state is now home to 4,735 manufacturers
employing 269,694 people, according to the report. Within the state, the transportation equipment sector saw 10.5 percent employment gains year over year to 36,264 people, pushing the sector ahead of the industrial machinery and textile/ apparel manufacturing as the largest state sector by employment. Plans for expansions at BMW’s Greer plant and ZF Transmissions’s planned facility are expected to further boost state transportation employment numbers. South Carolina saw 11.8 percent employment gains in rubber and plastics; 1.9 percent gains in printing and publishing; 1.3 percent gains in lumber and wood; and 1.1 percent gains in industrial machinery. Employment decreased by 4.6 percent in furniture and fixtures; 2.3 percent in stone, clay and glass; 1.7 percent in instruments and related products; and 1.2 percent in food products.
The state’s northwest region accounts for the largest share of industrial employment at 170,693 jobs, an increase of 1.7 percent year over year, but the Southeast region of the state saw the highest percentage increase of 4.7 percent to 33,986 jobs. Greenville County firms continued to employ the largest number of manufacturing jobs at 54,426, followed by Spartanburg (30,124), Charleston (23,009), Lexington (16,604) and Richland (14,947). In a ranking of cities, the city of Greenville took the top spot with 26,956 jobs, a 1.5 percent increase from last year, followed by Spartanburg with 16,604, Greer with 13,050, North Charleston with 12,733 and Anderson with 9,792. The state’s largest manufacturing employers include BMW with 8,000 employees, Boeing with 6,000, Michelin North America with 3,800, GE Power & Water with 3,400 and Kraft Foods Group with 2,500.
MANUFACTURING JOBS IN THE UPSTATE
2007–2008 2008–2009 2009–2010 2010–2011 2011–2012 2012–2013 2013–2014
SC Firms 5,465 5,169 5,111 4,938 4,870 4,794 4,735 SC Jobs
296,069 271,676 262,929 256,469 262,431 263,696 269,694
Change in SC Jobs, YOY
-2%
-10.2%
-3.2%
-1.5%
2.3%
1%
2.2%
Change in US Jobs, YOY
-3.7%
12.7%
-0.3%
1.8%
1.5%
0.4%
1.4%
Source: Manufacturers News Inc. 2008–2014 and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Manufacturing Employees 2007–2014.