Joe Ranalli, assistant professor of engineering at Penn State Hazleton, reported that advancements in solar cell technology have reduced prices for the electricity they generate to approximately the same level as conventional energy.
Johnson College graduates, from left to right, CJ Bonnaci, Rob Herbster and Aderly Rodriguez, are pictured working on programming a Fanuc LR Mate Robot to perform a pattern trace. Later in the same course, the students had to use the robots to palletize a product.
FROM PAGE 14 technology camp for incoming high school juniors all over as tech careers are discouraged in favor ment to lifelong learning is vital for anyone in the manufacturing does not take place in and seniors. Topics presented at the of four-year degree programs. We are technological arena. He declared that the dirty facilities of past days. Machine camp included lean manufacturing 101 therefore trying to address both kids passion plus knowledge creates an operators are actually programmers with a LEGO airplane simulation, value and parents with career planning, as environment for career success, and who are often physically separated he agrees with his industrial peers that stream mapping with a drone-build we change our overall culture about the from the manufacturing floor, and away simulation, plus plant tours of today’s people without a thirst for education value of a tech education.” from unpleasant environments. modern manufacturers and are increasingly headed into Vierling actually cringes when she Because school districts usually regional advanced manufacdark employment waters. hears commentary that no available jobs measure success by four-year college turing training facilities. A Johnson operational exist throughout NEPA. She responds Zwanich placement rate, plus a variety of societal tactic prized by Zwanich that unskilled jobs with high pay levels Duffy factors, Fornes expects no big increasSocietal inhibition details how the school uses are actually what has become scarce, es to be logged in the enrollment of industrial advisory commitand that even agricultural science has Lucyann Vierling, executwo-year tech schools. He charges the tees staffed by people in the become very tech-driven and requires tive director of the Wayne United States as a whole is dragging workforce to establish the technical education for success. Pike Workforce Alliance, its feet with acceptance of technology facets of the school’s varitakes the human side of Moving American society to the Fornes within industry, and said there are no ous technological majors, technology and skill training truth that good jobs require tech trainquick solutions for the plight of Ameritextbooks, tools, and equipfor industry a step further. ing, according to Vierling, is a very lofty cans who are anti-education. ment. In addition, students are required She charges that today’s lack of trained goal. The mass retirements of boomers Goldstein Vierling “I have no idea what we are going to to be educated in English, and special technicians for industry actually has a with industrial maintenance jobs is now do with the uneducated as far as their attention is directed at math-oriented societal root cause, even though the creating mass job openings, provided a place in the technological workforce,” said Fornes. instruction such as statistics. nation’s K-12 schools do routinely offer tools job candidate is properly trained. Andrew Zwanich, senior director of student “Our students must make multiple speeches such as career readiness planning, career fairs, “The labor market data tells the story,” said Viaffairs at Johnson College, commented that indus- in the classroom, which is not an easy task for job shadowing and industrial field trips. erling. “Since the 1950s, for every master’s degree trial employers no longer want one-dimensional many kids with a technology focus,” said Zwanich. According to Vierling, career awareness must level job, two bachelor’s degree jobs and seven employees, such as a person solely trained in “This all part of turning out graduates that meet start at the elementary school level and include associate and trade school positions become machinist or electrical technologies. Employers the comprehensive needs of technology-based practical applications of technology. Society must available. We need to fill these jobs with appronow desire to hire people with a blend of related employers.” also be a champion of technological learning. priately trained personnel, but to do this society skills, and to satisfy this need Johnson launched a The Northeastern PA Industrial Resource “Parents sometime interfere actively with a needs to change its outlook.” new curriculum called advanced manufacturing. Center (NEPIRC) is breaking new ground in the student’s choice of a technology-based career and Zwanich also is preaching that a commitskill training arena by virtue of its recent eight-day a two-year school,” charged Vierling. “We see this
NORTHEAST PENNSYLVANIA BUSINESS JOURNAL JULY 2017 15 TS_CNG/NPBJ/PAGES [B15] | 06/28/17
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