Vantage student tour skilled labor needs

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

A group of 10 senior Industrial Mechanics students from Vantage Career Center got the chance to visit a couple of Van Wert County companies where they will likely find jobs waiting following graduation this coming spring.

The students visited Toledo Molding & Die (TMD) and the Delphos plant of Kalida-based Unverferth Manufacturing on the east side of the county on Friday, accompanied by their instructors, Vantage Director Ben Winans and Van Wert County Economic Development Director Cindy Leis.

At TMD, the students got a chance to look at an auto supply operation, while Unverferth specializes in equipment for the agriculture industry, including cultivators, grain carts, farm wagons, gravity boxes, and grain and bale elevators.

Leis said the tour was a positive for both students and companies, as well as showing the community that things are being done locally to fill area companies’ need for skilled workers.

The students got the opportunity to see first-hand the kind of success they can have after graduation, when Jeff Schulte, a Kalida resident and 2002 Vantage precision machining graduate, now production engineer and manager at Unverferth’s Delphos plant, gave them a tour of the operation.

The tour also highlighted the intense competition from local companies for skilled workers who graduate from Vantage and other area training facilities. Students from Vantage’s Industrial Mechanics, Precision Machining and Welding programs are typically snapped up right after graduation by local companies

Noting that the Vantage Industrial Mechanics students were the “cream of the crop”, when it comes to locally trained workers, Leis said the Vantage seniors represented the kind of skilled labor companies were crying for.

Dave Unverferth, manager of that company’s Delphos plant, said his company has hired several Vantage students, and they typically are very successful within the company.

Leis agreed, noting that the 10 Vantage seniors won’t likely have to worry about finding a job after graduation.

“These guys at TMD and Unverferth … they’ll latch onto these students as soon as they graduate,” she noted.

For their part, the students will also have the opportunity to make above-average wages because of their skillset – and skill levels.