VWHS seniors learn about local companies

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Approximately 100 Van Wert High School seniors had the chance to visit two of eight local companies Tuesday to learn about their businesses. It was the third year for the tours, which are held the day that juniors are required to take the ACT college-entrance test.

Companies on the tour this year include Alliance Automation, Braun Industries, Central Insurance Company, Cooper Farms, National Door & Trim, Tenneco (formerly Federal-Mogul), Van Wert Health, and Wannemacher Packaging.

Each tour group included between 21 and 29 students and tours lasted just under two hours at each site. The tours provided information on each company, including product information, company history, the number of people employed, pay and benefits offered, credentials and certification requirements needed, and future employment needs.

One local company that embodies the new workforce reality is Alliance Automation, whose business model revolves around automation products, such as production lines and other business automation machines. The company’s products allow companies to automate a number of business functions, such as product handling, shipping, and other custom-tailored automation functions, to decrease the number of employees needed by their customers. 

That’s an important service for companies struggling to find quality employees as members of the Baby Boomer generation retire.

A group of students toured the company’s plant on Bonnewitz Avenue on Tuesday to learn more about what it makes, and how it operates. Alliance Automation, which was founded in 2004, has grown from one facility in Delphos with six employees to three facilities — including an engineering center in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and a manufacturing plant in Van Wert — and 80 employees. In addition to production workers, the company also employs 14 mechanical engineers and 12 electrical engineers.

Students were able to watch workers assembling automation products on the work floor, while also learning about engineering design and other company functions. A company representative said approximately 60 percent of the company’s business revolves around robotic pallet handling and manufacturing operations, although it offers a variety of custom-built robotic and other automation equipment to companies worldwide.

Students in the tour had previously seen some of Alliance Automation’s equipment while touring the Cooper Foods plant in Van Wert.

 “[The tour] is an opportunity for students to see what is actually happening inside the facility,” said Kerry Koontz, coordinator of VWHS’s CEO (Career Education Opportunity) program, who organizes the tours each year. “Students may drive by a business one hundred-plus times, but not realize what is going on inside.”

Koontz said the tours give students a chance to see how things are made at various local companies, while learning from company representatives exactly what it takes to be a good employee (collaboration, teamwork, dependability, critical thinking, taking pride in one’s work, etc.).

The tours not only give students a chance to learn about local businesses, it is also an opportunity for the companies to showcase what they do and recruit new employees. Tours also are a way for businesses and schools to partner on workforce development, Koontz noted.