A centuries-old way of learning a trade is hot again in North Carolina
Wake Technical Community College student Dominic Cavallini spends two days a week learning about the hydraulic systems that make forklifts work.
The three other days he works on forklifts at the Gregory Poole Equipment dealership in North Raleigh. As a paid technician under the supervision of a mentor, he takes what he learns in the classroom and uses it to maintain and repair forklifts as they exist in the real world.
“Dirty and used, broken and leaking. Everything,” he said. “It’s what you need to know how to do.”
Cavallini is one of a growing number of community college students in North Carolina finding a career through apprenticeships. With acute labor shortages in fields ranging from early childhood education to welding, colleges and employers are adapting a centuries-old model of teaching young people a trade by putting them to work while they go to school.
ApprenticeshipNC, a program of the N.C. Community College System, says it registered 4,990 apprentices at colleges statewide in the year ending June 30, a 45% increase over the year before. Chris Harrington, the program’s director, says apprenticeships help students embark on meaningful careers and “have strengthened our local businesses and economy by providing a steady stream of skilled talent.”
Perhaps no college has gone in for apprenticeships like Wake Tech. Four years ago, the college had 96 students working as apprentices at one of 15 companies, said president Scott Ralls. Now 140 companies offer apprenticeships through the college, and enrollment in those programs has grown to 464 students.
“I think we may be the fastest-growing apprenticeship college in the United States,” Ralls said. “Apprenticeship is becoming the norm for us.”
The growth at Wake Tech has been fueled by WakeWorks, an apprenticeship program launched by the college and the county in February 2020. The program offers apprenticeships in 20 fields such as carpentry, automotive repair and plumbing and provides scholarships that cover tuition, fees, books and tools.
Students are also paid for their apprentice work. It varies by job and employer, but students can expect to earn $15 to $20 an hour, according to John Wojcik, senior director of Wake Tech Apprenticeship, less than the $21.50 an hour the college tells employers is a living wage in the state.
“While many apprentices will not start out at this rate, our goal is to offer them a ‘foothold’ in their chosen industry or career, potentially leading to this wage,” Wojcik wrote in an email.
A new program with Gregory Poole
Like many employers in the Triangle, the Gregory Poole Equipment Company has difficulty finding enough workers. Damon Magee, general manager of the forklift division where Cavallini works three days a week, says the company employs 238 forklift technicians across its 13 dealerships but has openings for about 250 more.
“So we are in desperate need for people,” Magee said.
That kind of need across the company inspired Gregory Poole to create Wake Tech’s biggest apprenticeship program. This fall, up to 18 students will enroll for classroom and on-the-job training, primarily maintaining and repairing heavy equipment at the company’s Raleigh headquarters.
The construction of highways and manufacturing plants in the region creates strong demand for equipment and technicians to work on it, says Greg Poole IV, the company’s director of product support.
But finding new workers, not to mention replacing the skilled ones who retire, has become more difficult, particularly in an urban area where young people have countless options and increasingly don’t have experience working with their hands.
“We’re trying to attract people who have never held a wrench in their hand before,” Poole said. “That didn’t use to be the case.”
For a long time, high school academic advisers pushed students toward four-year universities, which has hurt all sorts of trades that may require some training or a community college degree, said Paige Kearns, who directs Wake Tech’s heavy equipment and transport technology program. Meanwhile, as machines become more computerized, employers can’t just hire someone off the street, Kearns said.
“The days of everything being mechanical and linkages has gone by the wayside,” he said. “So it requires a lot more than it did in the past to be a technician.”
’A really nice career to be in’
Students who complete the 11-month apprenticeship program with Gregory Poole will earn a certificate showing they’ve mastered certain skills and can continue working with the company or find work elsewhere. Or they can continue taking classes to earn an associate’s degree in their field or move on to earn a four-year degree from East Carolina University.
For his part, Cavallini hopes to stay at Gregory Poole repairing forklifts. After the Wake Tech apprenticeship, he expects to get more supervised training from the company answering customer calls on the road.
Cavallini didn’t know what he wanted to do when he graduated from Harnett Central High School last year. He became a cashier at a grocery store but knew he needed to find something more fulfilling.
“It makes me feel better about myself working here, because I know I’m making more of an impact in the world,” he said. “Because all these construction companies need forklifts. It’s just overall a really nice career to be in, and I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do here.”
Apprenticeship programs offered at Wake Tech
The WakeWorks program offers apprenticeships in more than 20 fields. Students can earn professional certification in five of those fields:
WakeWorks has apprenticeship degree programs in these fields. Admission to Wake Tech is required.
For more information, go to www.waketech.edu/programs-courses/wakeworks/apprenticeship/.
The News & Observer’s Inside Look takes readers behind the scenes to illuminate the people and places in our community.
