Category: St. Clair Business

Stickers, clothing, websites and more

Partners by Design Inc., a Pell City-based multimedia marketing company in historic downtown, has expanded its LakeLife brand with new products, an online store and retail outlets.

It started out as a way to promote Logan Martin Lake, and we did so with our website, loganmartinlakelife.com, and social media accounts. That led to the sale of vinyl, die-cut stickers, T-shirts, caps, visors and boat totes bearing our registered logo designed by Graham Hadley, our vice president for the Creative Division,” said Partners President and CEO Carol Pappas. “And more products are planned,” she added.

“We quickly saw that LakeLife, in general, is a way of life to promote as well, and we continue to build that brand on our newly launched national site, thelakelife.net,” she said, which includes information on Alabama lakes and a blog written by Pappas called LakeLife 24/7. Coincidentally, the site’s Twitter handle is lakelife247, and its Facebook page is at LakeLife.

The national site also features LakeLife Cooking, an online store, photos and other lake-related information and links, and content continues to be a work in progress. “We invite the LakeLife community – no matter where it is – to submit photos to be featured on the site,” Pappas said.

“In the meantime, Logan Martin LakeLife, continues to grow with our stickers, apparel and accessories selling well,” Pappas said. Logan Martin LakeLife products may be found in St. Clair County at Magnolia’s Gift Shop in Cropwell, The Dam Store and Country Store at Dam Road near Logan Martin Dam. In Talladega County, find them at Griffin’s Laser Engraving and in Jefferson, stickers are being sold at Rocky Ridge Hardware in Vestavia.

Logan Martin LakeLife products also are on sale in our online store at loganmartinlakelife.com, where Neely Henry stickers are also for sale. “St. Clair is blessed with two lakes,” Pappas said, “and we are hoping to expand our footprint with more Neely Henry products as well.”

Partners by Design was founded in St. Clair County in 2009 by Pappas and began official operation in 2010. Her colleagues at the time, Hadley and Brandon Wynn, have since become shareholders and partners in the organization. Wynn is vice president of Online Services for the company.

In addition to the LakeLife brand, Partners publishes Discover, The Essence of St. Clair Magazine, Chamber magazines for Leeds and Moody, Mosaic Magazine for Alabama Humanities Foundation, produces brochures, newletters, enewsletters, designs and rebuilds websites, and offers graphic design, advertising, communications consulting and photography services.

Find us online at loganmartinlakelife.com and thelakelife.net and on Facebook

Learning the job on the job

Story and Photos by Graham Hadley
Photos courtesy of Garrison Steel

When he was growing up, John Garrison’s greatest challenge was to work his way up from high school student to one day owning an industry-leading metal fabrication and erection company.

Today, that company, Garrison Steel, employs more than 200 people in Pell City.

Now he has a new challenge – finding skilled workers from a dwindling workforce to fill the jobs at his company, which has been responsible for the construction of buildings across the Southeastern United States.

So Garrison has come up with a plan to help his company and the workforce grow by building a training classroom at his facility.

The problem

For decades, people working in skilled trades, everything from metal fabrication to construction, plumbing to welding, were usually trained, almost apprentice style, by the previous generation.

But as the focus in secondary education turned more and more to two- and four-year college prep, fewer and fewer people were training in these essential skill areas, Garrison said.

That focus, combined with a general social impression that factory and construction jobs were dangerous and somehow less desirable than professional employment, has resulted in a serious drought of skilled workers at a time when the economy is expanding, particularly in this region, and exactly those trade skills are needed the most.

Existing skilled employees are gradually aging out of the workforce and, for the past couple of decades, few people have been stepping up to fill those positions — despite drastically improved work conditions and good pay, Garrison said.

“I am one of the last. My generation is the last of the people trained by skilled union laborers in our jobs,” he said.

Over the last few years, backed by the National Center for Construction Education and Research formed at the University of Florida, St. Clair business leaders like the Economic Development Council and education officials from Jefferson State Community College and the Pell City School System have made great strides in workforce development, offering high school and college students training in exactly those skills that are needed most.

And they did not do the work alone. Businesses across the board, from manufacturing and construction like Ford Meter Box, Goodgame Construction and WKW Automotive to medical offices and other companies have stepped into the partnership to provide the training and jobs for the students.

Taking the program in-house

From the beginning, Garrison and other industry leaders recognized they needed partnerships with local educators, both at the secondary and post-secondary levels — and they found exactly what they were looking for in Jeff State and the Pell City School System, he said.

Forming that partnership has been a struggle to get similar programs off the ground all over the country, but not in St. Clair, Garrison said.

While that partnership laid the foundation for initial job training — teaching students how to weld, construction techniques, OSHA safety standards and the like — the basic tools they would need to get their foot in the door after high school, Garrison wanted to take the process a step further.

“So in June of 2016, I asked Jefferson State to meet with seven area high schools to discuss a pilot program to take up to 25 high school students in dual enrollment and begin teaching out of the NCCER Ironworking curriculum. They all agreed and in January began the first ironworker program four hours per day, five days a week for 16 weeks,” he stated in a press release.

“Money for books and a classroom at Jefferson State Pell City for the first eight weeks was funded with Federal Perkins Grants, and the second eight weeks were at a newly built training center at Garrison Steel, where students learned theory and hands-on with welding, cranes, rigging, fabrication, oxygen and acetylene cutting, and much more.”

The first class finished up at the new facility at Garrison Steel as school wound down for the 2016-2017 year, and Garrison sees it as nothing but a great success and a huge step forward for the workforce development initiative he and the other business, education and industry leaders have been working toward.

“Our classroom is set up to do half theory and half practical. We integrate practical in nearly every day’s classroom experience, which breaks the monotony and adds to the connectivity in what they are reading.”

He said that appeals to students who are interested in learning the theory behind the work they are doing with their hands, but also is an ideal environment for those students who may not like a traditional classroom environment.

“Many kids don’t like book-work because they cannot see the connection between theory and practical. So, as a teacher this year, my goal was so that when they read, and there was a lot of reading, that we stopped often enough to see real-world applications and for them to connect.”

The only thing Garrison said they were not able to do this year, and that they will have next year, is a steel tower where students can practice and learn with safety and other rigging equipment in a real-world environment.

“The students will be training off the ground with safety equipment.”

What’s next

This is only the first step, for Garrison’s teaching center and for the students.

Now that they have cemented a relationship with local schools, he wants to reach out to people already in the workforce who have the skills training but not the theory behind what they are doing.

“This year our program captured those students who are available because they are in school. We have figured out how to utilize those students and train them. The next challenge for the fall classes is to figure out how to integrate what we call incumbent workers, those who are out there, already with jobs, sometimes at distant job-site locations, that have only the practical side of learning and virtually no theory to their learning.”

And those students won’t necessarily have to come to Garrison Steel or Jefferson State. Garrison has plans to use the Internet and distance learning to help train workers at their job sites.

The students have received their entry-level training this year, but there are many more classes and options available to them down the road.

“The theory is this — these guys who are going to graduate high school want to get out and get a job in the workplace, but that is just a start. In describing it, I try to play a movie in their head: ‘You get really good at what you know how to do skill-wise. Then you become capable of managing those skills of others, learning another new role in the company.’

“As the company grows, we need new managers. As time goes by, older guys like me age out, and we fill those positions from the bottom up. That is the theory, the process we tell these guys,” Garrison said. “We want them to be able to work all the way up to owning their own company one day.”

And as you learn one skill, more open up to you — in the workplace and in college.

“Just because you start out a welder does not mean you have to be a welder for the rest of your life,” he said.

“I have explained to my students that you know more technical aspects of our business than many of the people who have been working in the field for six years or more. They have a practical advantage over you, but you are learning the more challenging part, which is theory, and you will get the practical experience once you are hired.

“Now you have a distinct advantage over the incumbent workforce and have a pathway to higher positions later in your career.”

Payoff for students
and business

The move is not entirely altruistic. Garrison readily admits that having a skilled workforce at his disposal can save money and cut down drastically on job time. It also creates an overall safer work-site environment.

“The cost of labor is driving up the cost of construction. The cost of labor does not necessarily mean higher wages,” he said. The longer it takes to complete a job, the more expensive the project is.

“What a skilled workforce can do in three months might take an unskilled workforce four months to do. The problem is not a lack of workers; it is a lack of skilled workers.

Students who have enrolled in the program and are working for Garrison are similarly reaping the rewards of their efforts.

David Graves, who has previously talked about his experience at Garrison Steel soon after his graduation, has taken part in some of the classes and continues months later to move down the career path he has embraced.

“When he added the welding school, I took that. I was in processing before, now I am in welding, and that is going in the direction I want to be in,” he said.

“I want to learn more about fabrication, and welding is a step in that direction. …”

And it is the combination of classroom instruction and hands-on that is making all the difference.

“It really helps going through the class, giving you an understanding, but it won’t teach you to weld by itself. You learn that on the floor, learn from trial and error, grinding out your mistakes.”

Down the road, Graves hopes to move up to a supervisor or quality control position.

“There are classes for that at college. That opens doors like project manager.”

Matt McCrory is another employee who has benefitted from the multifaceted training program.

He has been at Garrison for two years now and has worked his way to an office position, lotting, where they break down the different design drawings into their components, which makes fabrication easier and more organized.

He originally took the welding course at Jefferson State and has continued his training at Garrison.

“That class helped me read the drawings. That is the biggest thing: Since I mostly read drawings, how things are applied, how they are used, how they are built,” McCrory said. “If I don’t know how to read the drawings, I can’t do my job.”

He plans on continuing to work at Garrison, but also sees more college in his future at Jefferson State, focusing on business administration.

“The lessons I have learned here will help in college,” he said, adding that he definitely has a better idea of what he wants his career path to be now that he has been in the workforce. Something he said was very much lacking when he was a senior in high school.

One graduate of the class, Alex Bowman of Pell City, is still in school but is already on the job.

Bowman is a 17-year-old who just finished his junior year and is working at Garrison Steel.

And he already can see his path ahead.

“I am looking at doing this for a career, definitely something as an ironworker with Garrison Steel,” he said, pointing to the owner as an example. “Seeing Mr. Garrison’s investment in us makes me want to work harder, to one day get to the level he is at. It’s very inspiring.”

Studying in the class and working at Garrison has been ideal for Bowman, who readily admits he is not a fan of traditional classroom environments.

“I am not very good in a classroom. You can learn the idea of what you want from a book, but hands-on, you actually learn how to do it,” he said.

And because he now has some certification under his belt, he has options.

“NCCER was a huge step up for us when it came to the ironworker program. It means, when you graduate, you have jobs waiting for you. Having your core training shows a lot of employers you have the ability and intentions to step up and get ahead in the game.”

Return on Investment

“I know for a fact that a one-dollar investment in training returns three in productivity. … It’s not altruism; it’s survival,” Garrison said.

He is quick to point out that he is not the only one investing in the program — support he could not have made the new classroom work without.

“Red-D-Arc Welders are a major contributor to our program with welding equipment donated. The additional supporters of our program are NUCOR Steel, Cobb Wire Rope and Sling, NEX AIR, and Lincoln Electric and Service Construction Supply (SCS),” he said.

Between that kind of support and the growing partnership with education, business and organizations like the EDC, Garrison sees a bright future for workforce development in St. Clair County.

Programs changing lives, building business

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Michael Callahan and Graham Hadley

A decade ago, if you were a high school student in Alabama, chances are, all eyes were on what was touted as the ultimate prize – a four-year college degree.

But about that same time, employers across the state and the country started noticing how lean the labor pool was for skilled workers, whether it was a metal fabricator, carpenter, certified nursing assistant, pharmacy tech or paralegal.

We were literally “running out of skilled labor,” said Garrison Steel owner John Garrison.

An immediate response was needed, particularly in Alabama, if we were going to remain economically competitive.

“As we were getting graduating seniors, we could not get students who needed to do what we needed them to do. They were worried about graduating students who were going to college and not about students who needed a job,” said Jason Goodgame, vice president at Goodgame Company. “Some students don’t need to go straight to college. They need to work.”

St. Clair County and Pell City were particularly in a prime position to address the problem — all the pieces were already in place. Goodgame, Garrison and other businesses like Ford Meter Box, working with the Economic Development Council, the Pell City School System and Jefferson State Community College, began to develop a plan, actually a series of initiatives, to help identify and train students starting in high school or immediately after graduation to fill the ever-growing gaps in the workforce.

“We need brick masons, electricians, plumbers, and really, for us, people who can be a jack-of-all-trades: put down a foundation, frame out a door, a bit of everything,” Goodgame said.

“So we passed a measure to tax ourselves, the businesses that needed the employees, to educate these students that we need.”

The initial results, spurred on by the growing demand for workers as the economy recovered, were varied. From training schools in Birmingham to the iCademy next to Jefferson State Community College in Pell City to new initiatives and classes in the school system — often involving spending part of the school day doing on-the-job training.

“We want students who are coming out of high school to have entry-level skills,” Garrison said. “… Beyond high school, we want them to come into our companies and continue training with post-secondary schools and with on-site training at our facility by skilled instructors.”

As business owners from all areas of the Pell City economy — heavy manufacturing to medical, food, legal and other professional services — stepped up to the plate to help with training and hiring the students, the Pell City School System responded in kind.

“We just have students who are being matched up with specific career interests. The program gives them the opportunity to try out career fields before committing to study through two- and four-year schools,” said Kim Williams, curriculum coordinator for Pell City schools.

“And we are getting the students partnered with people who are passionate about what they are teaching – places like Garrsion Steel, Goodgame, Ford Meter Box,” Superintendent Michael Barber added. “… It is one generation of workers training the next. Whether it is health care, business, construction, kids are getting excited. It’s very meaningful.”

The original varied workforce-training programs are starting to work together under a more unified structure, with coordination coming from both the state and local levels.

“Where we are headed is merging these programs back together,” Goodgame said.

That means better coordination between the school system and the business community and better job placement for students and recent graduates. Williams even serves on the Industrial Development Board, a sign of the close partnership between schools and the business community.

According to all involved, it is a win-win proposition: The businesses get job-ready workers, and students have the ability to go right into the workforce, earn a real living wage, receive training with room for upward mobility and, if they want, continue their education, often without incurring the heavy debt loads students going straight to college do.

Good Job, Good Life

 

Blake

Blake White, a member of the 2015 graduating class at Pell City High School, is in his second year at Ford Meter Box. The first year he worked there was during his senior year of high school.

And according to Blake, things could not be going better. He has a good job that he likes, he is training and has already moved up the ladder, he is still attending college, and he is earning more money than he dreamed possible right out of high school.

“If I work here full time, they will pay for college — tuition, books, the whole nine yards.”

He already had a scholarship to Jeff State, but that does not cover everything, especially living expenses. Blake always knew he would have to work after graduation to pay those expenses, but before doing co-op at Ford Meter Box, he expected to go to school full time and work fast food or some similar job like many of his friends.

Instead, he works full time and goes to school part time, opening multiple options for his future.

“It was an easy choice, college for two years and have all those expenses, or work, earn money and have someone pay for school,” Blake said.

“I really like working with my hands. I started at the bottom as a flange washer, but now I am in maintenance — I fix things,” he said.

Along the way, he is learning a wide range of skills. Already a natural mechanic, he is picking up electrical skills along the way, something he says may help if he pursues a degree in electrical engineering or similar field.

And starting as the low man on the totem pole was no problem for Blake — it means he gets to train under people who know the business and to work with people he likes.

“Never settle for where you are at. Do whatever needs doing. You can make it to the top, but you have got to pay your dues,” he said. He is working on his core classes for his two-year degree, and the jury is still out on where he goes from there, whether he stays in the business or starts on some kind of engineering degree.

“In a place like this, you can go as far as you want to go if you are willing to put in the time and work hard for it,” he said.

 

C.C.

From his first day on the job at Garrison Steel, Charles Clellon “C.C.” Watson was getting training from one of the best. Now he helps estimate the cost for putting up the buildings. He has only been there two and a half years.

C.C. graduated with a degree in communication from Mississippi State in 2013 — a time when the communication industry was lean on jobs.

At first “I wanted to do physical therapy school. My father-in-law was a project manager here and said they were looking for another erector estimator. John Garrison hired me on a 60-to-90-day trial to see if I was the right person for the job, plus training for about a year.

“My family has always been in the construction industry, but not the steel industry. I came in here pretty much blind and had to learn from scratch,” he said.

“All the training was on the site. From the first day, John opened up a set of drawings. He taught me what everything was, from what each piece of steel costs to sizing construction cranes. And then I went out into the field to do more training there.”

Quick to point out he is making much more money than he probably would have with his communication degree, C.C. says despite the change in professional direction, he is very happy with where he has landed.

“After I got out of college, this was the last thing I thought I would be doing, but I love what I am doing. I have always been really good at math, so this is right up my alley. This is a very competitive industry, so your numbers have to be spot-on to get the contract.

“This has opened up a ton of new doors to new successes for me. Garrison is a great place to work. It has given me options for new jobs here — or anywhere — in the future in the construction industry.”

And though he could go elsewhere with his new training, C.C. is happy where he is now.

“I will stay here as long as they let me. I live in Oxford. It’s an easy drive. John is a great boss. Everyone here is great, and the company is moving in a great direction.”

 

Cody

Like many of his co-workers at Garrison, Ragland graduate Cody Poe first heard about a job through a friend who already worked there.

“A buddy of mine who was a welder called and told me they were looking for a burn-table operator — it’s a CNC plasma machine that burns parts out of plates. That takes training and skill to operate,” he said.

He had originally wanted to be a State Trooper, but things have worked out well at Garrison.

“When I started out, Mr. Garrison was impressed with my work ethic. He pulled me off the floor and is training me to do steel purchasing for the company.

“I came in and proved myself, and doors opened for me. They are talking about sending me to class, but there is also lots of hands-on training from the guy who has been doing it all his life. He took me under his wing, showing me the ins and outs.

That training is an essential part of what has made the whole process such a success.

“Garrison believes in training. When you are first hired, they stick you with an experienced person. You stick with that person until they say you have enough experience to be working by yourself,” he said.

For Cody, that has helped lay the foundation for the rest of his life.

“It has given me financial security. I moved out on my own. I got to buy a vehicle on my own. It’s a jump start on my future. I live about 5 miles from here. It is really great. I don’t ever plan on leaving. I plan on staying here as long as I can.

“You have got to come in and prove yourself, come in and want to work. Give it all you have got to get the job done.

“I came in, gave it my all, and it paid off,” he said.

 

Lauren

Pre-med Auburn student Lauren Luker already had a good idea what she wanted to do with her life when she graduated from Pell City High School in 2015, thanks in part to workforce training at Pell City Internal and Family Medicine her senior year and during the summers after graduation.

“I heard about it from other students who had jobs or who were interning for things like physical therapy. I asked the teacher. I had to fill out a lot of forms and get permission,” she said.

The initial work fit nicely with her senior schedule, leaving plenty of time for school, extracurricular activities and a social life.

“Dr. (Rick) Jotani was the one who gave me the chance and let me do this. I left every day about 2 and stayed until around 4 p.m. It was really good because it started during school,” Lauren said.

The initial school training program was unpaid, but that soon changed.

“I was not paid during the first internship. Then in May, right before I stopped, they asked if I was interested in continuing over the summer. That was paid. So was this summer.

“It’s been really nice. They have been so good to me. They really want me to learn. They have taken a chance on me, always asking if I want to learn to do new things. I have been in the business office, checking people in,” she said, pointing out those are sides of a medical practice usually not covered in medical school.

“This lets me see how a practice works, lets me see that side of things. This reinforced what I wanted to do. When you are in college, everything is so hard, it is difficult to see the big picture. When you get back here, you see what the end goal is.”

 

Good workers, Good business

Jim Ford, human resources manager for Ford Meter Box in Pell City, believes everything they are doing in workforce development is an investment, not only in his business, but in the local economy as well.

“We are doing anything we can to help get the idea out that education is important – not just four-year, but technical training, too — something that gets them a good-paying job,” he said. “We pay 100 percent if our people will commit their time to school as long as they pass. It grows our workforce and our community.

“That is a tenet of Ford Meter Box as a whole.

“It means a sustainable workforce for us in the long run. We think it makes our community better. It brings in jobs and keeps jobs here,” he said.

And an educated and skilled workforce helps people like St. Clair Economic Development Council Executive Director Don Smith bring in better-paying jobs.

“It’s a cooperative effort. We are glad to do it and hope it continues,” Ford said.

Smith agreed, pointing out the beginnings of workforce development go back years, first with the iCademy, now with new classes at Jeff State and Pell City High School and on-the-job training at businesses across the area.

“At the end of the day, companies are going to come where the people have the skillsets they need. Whether it is high school, a two-year or four-year college, if you are producing students, giving them the opportunities to learn those skillsets, then those companies are going to come,” he said.

In fact, that is one of the first questions a prospective business asks about when considering locating somewhere. Having a skilled and trained workforce and a training program in place is essential.

“It’s a great recruitment tool,” said Jason Roberts, assistant director with the St. Clair EDC and someone Smith credits with much of the success of the workforce training program.

The workforce development effort could not have come soon enough for Roberts.

“In the recent past, schools did their own thing, and their objective was usually four-year college or bust. But the reality is, in our community, we have many jobs and fields where the skilled working population is retiring, getting older, and there is no one ready to backfill those positions,” he said.

Some fields, like truck driving, are so in demand that employees willing to put in the time can earn six figures a year.

“You can get those truck driving jobs all day long. The same is true for welders, plumbers and electricians,” he said.

Now, with everyone working together, the workforce development program is helping the EDC take St. Clair County business recruitment to the next level.

“Now everyone is trying to connect. We have let education know companies and businesses are buyers of their products — educated students – and there is a big push to get people trained to fill these gaps in the workforce,” Roberts said.

“It’s essential to business recruiting, especially here, because we have proof of product — students in place at businesses here. It’s the No. 1 driving force when companies are looking at an area,” he said.

“They know their employees are going to make their company successful.”