For Ohio businesses, community colleges are critical workforce partners
Bluffton-based GROB Systems and Rhodes State College collaborate for electromechanical engineering apprenticeship
By Michael Hutecker, CEO and President – GROB Systems
As Ohio looks to reclaim its historic status as a manufacturing powerhouse, many companies like ours face a common challenge: Finding the skilled workforce required for today’s advanced manufacturing is never a given, especially in relatively rural areas. But at GROB Systems, we believe we’ve cracked the code with our partnership with Rhodes State College. And, thanks to Ohio’s robust statewide system of community colleges, it’s a model that can work in any Ohio community.
As GROB’s apprenticeship sponsor for Ohio, Rhodes State provides the classroom and laboratory instruction that, paired with on-the-job training in our Bluffton plant,
transforms promising high-school graduates into skilled electromechanical engineering technicians over the course of a four-year program.
Apprentices are paid, with benefits, from Day 1, as they attend classes two days per week and work on site as trainees the other three days. They earn a Rhodes State associate’s degree in two years, after which they complete two more years of full-time training on the shop floor. They then have journeyman status, with a Certification of Completion of Apprenticeship from the Ohio State Apprenticeship Council.
It’s a tuition-free degree rolled into a full-time job for the apprentices; for us, it’s rock-solid workforce development. For the past 12 years, we’ve accepted 40 to 50 young people per year into the program, and every one has taken a fulltime position at GROB at the end.
This steady pipeline is critical to our success in Ohio, and a big part of why we were able to take on our current expansion project. We broke ground in December 2023 on a 135,000-square-foot building addition, set to open in March, that will increase our production and shipping space by 35% and add 200 jobs to the 960 or so current positions.
And, while companies like ours deeply appreciate how community colleges are building Ohio’s skilled workforce, these institutions are equally important for the opportunities they provide individual Ohioans. Our partner college’s namesake, Gov. Jim Rhodes, was passionate about jobs. Seeing education as the pathway to better jobs, he determined that every Ohio student should have access to a college education within 25 miles.
That’s why Ohio is rich with 22 other community colleges like Rhodes State, offering affordable alternatives to four-year degrees, ranging from career certifications to job-focused associate degrees to two-year programs designed to allow seamless transition to four-year colleges and universities.
Thanks to the strong leadership of Gov. Mike DeWine and former Lt. Governor Jon Husted, local leaders in the Ohio General Assembly, including House Speaker Matt Huffman and Senate President Rob McColley – and the ongoing support of organizations like JobsOhio and Regional Growth Partnership – our state continues to be a top destination for business expansions and relocations. This growth means more and more good jobs that offer quality pay and benefits, but also require specialized skills. Community colleges are the obvious solution.
Because community colleges are nimble and locally focused, they can be endlessly innovative in matchmaking between industries that need talent and people who need career opportunities.
In our case, Rhodes State works continuously with us to understand how our industry is changing and what we need them to include in the classroom curriculum for the apprenticeship program. One result is the Electro-Mechanical Engineering Technology program: We saw that more and more of our technical positions required knowledge of both mechanical and electronic engineering, and Rhodes State created a program combining the two. It’s now in its third year and producing great results.
It's a two-way partnership; support from GROB helped Rhodes State garner a $440,000 award from the Ohio Legislature’s One Time Strategic Community Investment Fund and over $750,000 from the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s Regionally Aligned Priorities in Delivering Skills (RAPIDS) program. These funds helped expand the college’s Advanced Manufacturing Center and acquire new robotics technology.
GROB would not be the company it is without our apprenticeship program and Rhodes State is central to that program’s success. We believe that partnerships like ours could benefit businesses and workers across the state.
When Ohio’s community colleges succeed, they drive the success of businesses like ours, strengthen our families, and uplift our communities. By continuing to prioritize and invest in these institutions we can help build a prosperous future for all.
