Delaware is expanding its apprenticeship program with help from a new federal grant.
U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez visited Delaware Monday morning, touring steel and welding company RC Fabricators with Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons.
They were touting a new $200,000 federal grant to expand Delaware’s Apprenticeship and Training program. The state program currently employs around 1,000 apprentices at any given time each year, with a handful at RC Fabricators.
RC Fabricators has hosted state sponsored apprentices since 2006.
Production manager Joe Trincia heads up the company’s apprenticeship program and says RC Fabricators prides itself on training younger professionals in what he says is an aging industry.
“We’re a dying breed, you know," Trincia said. "We need the younger generation to step up and do what some of us older guys are going to retire, and take over and do our work.”
Most apprenticeships at RC Fabricators are four years long, and provide paid on-the-job experience.
The company’s Vice President and board chair Robert Suppe says seven current employees started as apprentices.
He adds right now their apprenticeship program is full with four or five apprentices at any given time.
State Division of Employment and Training director Stacey Laing says the new federal grant will help expand apprenticeship opportunities in industries like IT and healthcare, and seeks to diversify the pool of people taking advantage of the program.
“We want to look at different individuals who in the past have not engaged in the apprenticeship program like women and minorities," Liang said.
Grant funds will also go toward increased marketing of the program to potential apprentices and local companies.
State Secretary of Labor Dr. Patrice Gilliam-Johnson adds that apprenticeships should be considered as a realistic substitute for a traditional four-year college degree.
“There are other alternative ways that people can get to the middle class, people can be successful, and make their lives better," Gilliam-Johnson said.
Delaware’s Dept. of Labor has also applied for another federal apprenticeship grant from President Obama’s $90 million Apprenticeship USA initiative.
Perez says there’s strong bipartisan support for apprenticeship programs, and the Obama Administration is committed to doubling the number of them nationwide by 2019.
