 Well, good afternoon everyone or good morning depending upon what part of the country you're in. Welcome. My name is Eric Sellers now and I'm with Jobs for the Future and very happy partner in the PIA project nationally. JFF is a large national nonprofit that works at the intersection of education training and work we've been doing so for almost 40 years and I lead our center for apprenticeship and work based learning it's been operation in four years and we do a ton of work with states and locals and boards and colleges and employers and a whole lot of other work in for the center of apprenticeship and work based learning. Well, this will never be as exciting as having a bunch of apprentices on like the previous section which was outstanding by the way kudos to you guys for that one really smart young people but it's almost as cool because we have real live here and people who work with these young people and provide them opportunities and I'm going to guess and you can disabuse me to this notion. I'm going to guess you've been totally impressed by many of the apprentices that you have had as youth and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. So I've got a series of questions, and I'm joined by a range of folks in the South Carolina Charleston region. But I don't know all the names of your company so you're going to have to help me with that but as I go through I'm with Debbie McLeod, Don Drake, Donald Smith and Hendrick Otto. Who else do we have here. David Brown with Kion group. Roxanna with HCA healthcare and the rest of the introductions I'll let you do but we've got a great group of folks here who provide. So many opportunities to students that are helping out young people advance developing a pipeline of the future. They're spreading good skills throughout their community, not only with their job but certainly maintaining work skills and work values and really is a big issue in training our next generation of workers. So many of the folks around the country would do with the Charleston region has done but I always tell people across the country where we go that. So a lot of programs out there that are doing youth apprenticeship look at Charleston first. That region, great relationships with employers, a good central intermediary with tried and tech and arrange a very good partners from K to 12 community college system, employers and business association so with that I'm not going to waste any more time. The members of this session might want to give me the hook or a warning when we got about five minutes left because I know me in this group will love to talk about this issue and can talk about it for a long, a lot more time we have scheduled today so give me a heads up if we're running over but thank you, Melissa and Mitchell and all the other folks at Trident for helping organize this session. There's a bump in it right I mean we talk about apprenticeship as being employer driven, whether it's youth or adults. We in the apprenticeship supply side of things need to make sure we understand what employers issues are what their concerns are what their skill needs are what their future workforce challenges are so we really need to get the employer's point of view on this. And then there's the other side of what the system can do and providing appropriate students to help the employer. And so we want to sort of address the history how your programs came together. Tell us a little bit about your company in the program. How's your experience been to date, and we want honesty we don't only want to hear good things if you had a student who had challenges and you had to sit him down for a while that's fine too that's part of the process, but we do want to very much how the how these things operate so in other parts of the country we can sort of replicate some of those themes that you're doing so I'm just going to jump right in here and I think I'm going to start with Debbie McLeod Debbie with Debbie tell us a little bit about your company and what you do for your firm Debra. Okay, so I'm Debbie McLeod from McLeod Information Systems, and I'd like to say thank you for having a having me on today. We are a cybersecurity company, we're one of the first in the state of South Carolina to put a registered apprenticeship program in a cybersecurity business. I am the president of the company I'm also the apprenticeship director. And the reason that we chose to do this is because of the job shortage there's approximately 3 million short worldwide in cybersecurity so we, my husband and I collaborated and we decided that it would be beneficial for us in the industry that we're in to grow our own pipeline. So I love that term grow your own. I often use that with apprentices because you're in fact doing that. And cyber is a really interesting space to get to there's a number of cyber apprenticeship programs across the country at various stages because I think it's still all being worked out. So, you looked at the job shortages you looked at, which is very situational right pandemic related post pandemic you don't know where you're going to get your workers from. So you decide to grow your own. So what did you do how did you connect with this system. And did you know how it was going to turn out when you started. What I did, because I have my histories and education. I knew that schools have intern programs. I was I was in one myself. So, my first approach was to contact the local school district about having interns, and I got no reply so I decided to investigate that a little further. And in my investigations I came across apprenticeship Carolina. Who came sat down they brought the local school district and we sat down and we talked we explained what we wanted to do everybody agreed that it was definitely needed. And they through doing that we partnered with try to attack for the educational portion of this program. So, so that's an interesting experience. Was it tried and that you've so apprenticeship Carolina is known for having a column navigators but apprenticeship consultants located throughout the state they're usually attached to a community college which is great. Was it a tried and consultant that reached out to you at first or just another one from apprenticeship who then ended up connecting you with try. I really approached apprenticeship Carolina and when they came and they understood that the local school district hadn't replied, and we wanted to start out at the high school level, specifically the underserved population. Once we sat down and we put all the pieces together on how this was going to come together and what we wanted my program to look like that's when they referred me over to try to technical college. That's great. So apprenticeships are far different than internships I was also a high school intern and a college co op student and apprenticeships are far different. And I think you've made out on the deal with that right. I mean it really is, you know, a real way to integrate integrate a possible pipeline of workers where interns are mostly just for the experience of the student. Did you encounter any unexpected challenges or problems or was it like you were discovering new and interesting things every day that worked for your program design. So far we haven't had many challenges and in reference to the internship. The purpose of that is with cybersecurity we wanted a limited amount of obligation from the student. So the internship program, let's them know and let's us know is this a good candidate for an apprenticeship. So that's the purpose of doing it that way. But through the whole program, we really have not. Everything has been pretty much what we expected except for what we did not expect is everybody who works in the company wants to participate with the apprentices. Everybody sees that as the most energetic and exciting part of our company. So that was a little unexpected and then how much we love what we're doing and how much we have seen these apprentices grow through the program. It's been way more rewarding than what we expected. I've heard that before Debbie that's an excellent proposal, excellent. Comment to make we're working with a health care is a hospital up in New Hampshire, and the staff are actually fighting over being assigned the apprentice because it sort of changed their organization. You know they describe it very similar to you and it, it juiced up the staff and everybody wanted to help out, you know, I mean as far as recruiting future students what a great welcome for them to have everybody interested in them. So, so how long have you been doing this and how many students have you been able to bring on, you know, there's a lot of questions about scale. Oh, did you bring on 100 students to bring on 10 students. You know, and there's a lot of policymakers and politicians like to say we want 10,000 apprentices, but the reality of the workplace is not everybody's going to absorb a huge number and that's fine right. But, you know, as long as you're doing that sort of work with somebody so how long have you been involved in it how many students have you been able to serve. So we've been involved in this for a little over three years, and we have, we just took on our third apprentice. It's relatively one each year, what it's been equaling out to. We are a small business so we have to take these new apprentices in as the funds become available to do so. So our goal is the more we grow the business the more apprentices that we have. Right. Well look and even if you only get one one a year right in five years you're going to have five highly skilled people in your office right in 10 years you're going to have 10 so you know they do expand over time, and that's fine. In terms of an investment sometimes we hear employer employers oh my goodness there's a lot of startup costs I don't want to be associated with that I want to find something else. It sounds like you had a lot of energy a lot of focus and some effort trying to find the connection. Was there a lot of investment up front was it a onerous process up front, or once you found tried and things work pretty smoothly for you. There wasn't a lot of investment on our part. And as I just spoke at international conference last week to cybersecurity people across the world. And that was one of the things that I mentioned to them as whenever they were looking at the ROI perspective because that's always something that it seems to want to throw up constantly. And my response to that was the response that I had heard IBM make which is, you either invest now, or you lose now or you lose later, because right now we have a pipeline emergency, and you're either going to spend that money training them up front, or you're spending that money in the rear training them afterwards. So you pick which pathway you are wanting to lose, but you're going to either lose now or you're going to lose later so as far as an ROI we personally feel like it. We already see in that growth, and whether we see it in dollars, we, or, or it's more so that we see it in the lives being changed. And that to us is way more rewarding than seeing the dollar signs. Let's talk a little bit about the logistics of this and working with Trident and doing something called a registered apprenticeship, which seems to have a lot of mystery myth and me perception surrounding that term around the country but you know how was it working with your local colleges Trident. And was it a burden, if you will, and registering the program I hear lots of employers say oh my goodness the paperwork was terrible and it's so hard and I usually hear that from employers who never tried it. But I'm wondering how that experience was for you was it onerous was it easy. I would say that it was exactly easy because there was the cyber security education outline had to have quite a bit of tweaking, but and that had to come with us sitting down. Once we got that put in place and I wouldn't say that's exactly tedious and labor some whenever you already have in mind what your expectations are and you already know what your career field demands. I think it's a little bit easy easily accomplished. Trident was very helpful there. They're still helpful as far as anytime we have questions or just if something needs to be done through the Department of Labor they're quick to let me know hey we need this part, you know, and it's so no I wouldn't say that it's been onerous. And as I would lean more towards it's been a little bit more easily done. That's great. That's great. All right, I'm going to the last question for you I can actually continue this conversation WL day I do think cyber is a really interesting space, your comment about having to tweak the curriculum at your local training center is exactly how this system is supposed to work. If, if a training provider educational institution cannot meet your needs, but are willing to, then you need to tell them the skills and the curriculum and the things you need to student to have. And our job as practitioners in this space is to meet that challenge and to be able to customize an apprenticeship program to your needs so I'm sure the college made out on your contributions. Certainly your apprentices would. My last question to you Debbie is, if you had to sort of had a group, a room full of employers, what sort of recommendations would you make to either employers or other community based partners who are just starting out. So, cyber employers or employers in general. Any employer starting an apprenticeship program I love it if you lean towards it and cyberspace but you know any employer who's getting ready to get involved in this because we have employers from all over the occupational and industry spectrum. One thing that I'm consistently, I repeat myself, all the time is when you're looking into these programs especially if you're going to start with the youth programs. Do not overlook your title one schools and your underserved populations because, especially in it they tend to lean towards wanting the cream of the crop, thinking that they need to go into the magnet schools or the charter schools. But within the walls of these underserved schools are students that have a lot of potential who just need those doors of opportunity to open for them. So that is the one thing that I'm consistently repeating over and over and over, do not overlook them, you need, you need students from each of those categories to balance out your program. Many times I tell employers, you know, at minimum it should reflect the demographics of your community, your apprentices know and you know look it's, it's, you know there's, there is oftentimes where people say oh we want to go to the, you know, the magnets or the gifted talented programs when there's talent right in front of them from a lot of other places. I will tell you though from an employer point of view to have you leading with that is really important, right. Because many people are trying to figure that out but you as an employer saying, look, we want to make sure everybody in our community has access and opportunity to enter apprenticeships and certainly it and cyber probably male dominated for the most part anyway probably racially dominated by whites versus others and actually the data would tell us that so, so good for you that gets you a lot of bonuses, many different ways so thank you Debbie I'm probably going to come back to you so don't go anywhere thank you very much. Really interesting that we led with cyber security. Alright, who do I have next going to ask similar questions to Don Drake, HMGI Charleston. Good afternoon everyone. Hi where are you I see everybody on my screen but. Hey Don, how are you today. Fine thank you. Good tell us a little bit about your company. We're a 32 year old company we're a restaurant in a real estate holding company, mostly in the South Carolina area. Are you in the Charleston region or all over. We are we're in the Charleston region. Great. So tell us a little bit about now my last visit to Charleston happened to visit another number of culinary apprentices it's my favorite thing to do when I'm on the road. Tell us a little bit about why you entered into this apprenticeship we know the hospitality tourism industry is a big thing particularly in the Charleston region. I'm assuming that's what drove some of this but tell us a little bit about why you got involved in in this apprenticeship work. I've been involved with apprenticeship programs now for roughly about 30 years, and having, you know, previous experience with the larger corner schools like you know, CIA Johnson and Wales and, you know, excited those schools court on blue and New England so we've we've been involved in this for the apprenticeship programs. And then we have three of our former employees are actually chef instructors down at Trident. And we have to chef instructors the local high schools. So we we've got a really good feedback when Mitchell approached me about this new program. We were really excited about it. And that's where experience of you know, the labor shortage and you know, the last visit Charleston you're well aware of a of the numerous restaurants open consistently in a Charleston area so labor pool is pretty tight. But it was pretty easy. It was pretty easy fit for us having you know, many many years of experience with the other apprenticeship programs were involved with. And are they. I'm sorry. Are your apprenticeship programs front of the house back of the house. Chef and cooking are there other occupations or, or where have you settled in on your occupancy there in you know and let's say probably the more majority of probably 85% are the back of the house the other 15% are in front of the house. But in our apprenticeship programs we rotate. When we get when we when we're approached by the students or we approach the students that you know they're assigned a mentor and then the mentor takes them through their particular area that you know they specialize in and then we hand them off to another mentor. You know street communicate see what kind of progress they are, and then always switch them on but it's, it seems to work out well for us, you know, the apprenticeship program we are but by the time they'll leave us even though if you're in front of the house or back the house, you spend time in all areas. Right. Right. So, how many, you know, for, for the Trident program, and I realize that, you know, in your business, particularly if you're have many properties and many, many locations, you need to have a number of people coming in to train and you work with some of the colleges or post secondary institutions on this. So when, when you first started talking to Mitchell about bringing high school students in. Did you gasp? Did it make you stop and think were you worried about alcohol on premise where you're worried about kids showing up? Or, or what, what, what was I can't say that I was, I was worried about all the above for sure, especially when, you know, like the first ground we got, you know, they're really young, you know, someone were 15 to 17. And you were, you know, have children of myself, my own, and I'm like, Oh, because, you know, a restaurant can be, you know, it can be a, you know, it's a really fast paced movement environment. There is all the stuff you mentioned, you know, involved with this atmosphere. And so I'm pretty protective of them. I really, really get, before we start any kind of communications, I sit down with the parents and the kids. And we talk about the job, what's expected of them, how this is going to work, transportation, school work, all the above, and then we let it, we let it roll for a while and then we sit down again with them. Make sure that you know they're keeping up on their grades. You know, everything's going well at home along and on and on the work front. And that is a really smart thing to do. You're sort of helping, helping set the expectations and the guidance for those young people to follow because they'll, they'll need that. Yeah, I think I'm really great with it. It's really, really important, especially with the younger kids that we get the parents involved with it. And, you know, we take this thing as a whole, but it's just seen phenomenal results with the younger guys. I mean, they're just, they want to learn, they want to learn. And like, they're like a sponge, they suck up any information you send to them. And then the parents relate to, you know, they're trying different stuff at home and they're cooking for their parents or cooking for a company when they come over. It's really exciting for only us, but to see the parents as parents to see the kids grow in the field already so quickly too. So, so your concerns that you had initially, pretty much have gone away because of some of the experiences if you've had and some of the systems that you set up so you're not hesitant anymore about bringing in 16 year old for example. I don't know, not anymore. It doesn't seem broad, we do limit now we do limit the time frames that they do, they can work and they do work. You know, we stick to most of the time, you know, if depending upon the grades you know the easy work on weekends. You know, when it first began to work in the daytime hours, you know, under, because we have more of an older crowd in the daytime, you know, all of us are, you know, 30 40 50 so they have a lot of, you know, multiple parents around. And so we keep a good eye and watch them until we feel comfortable with them. And then you know then they make some progression and then we switch them a little bit more to more different areas. So this question may be better for Ron or David or or some of the others are done but any concerns about liability on your end you're taking this responsibility I'm sure you had to sign something. You know, you have meat slicers probably have hot stoves any concerns about liability that you had. And if so how'd you address it. You know, of course we always, you know, stress safety in the kitchen. And then, you know, when it comes to the differences, you know, any kind of workman's conference stuff is covered by the college. And so it's another contract, you know, they sign with those guys, which you know take some of, you know, some of the liability off of us, but we always you know, stress, you know, a safe environment, but I don't really have any concerns because you know, everybody practices good, practices, you know, in the kitchens, because you know, again, you know, it's, we try to keep everybody a safety level so it's been working out well. I don't really have any concerns. That's great. And can you estimate of, well I had a CEO and Switzerland's apprenticeship program say to me look if they apprentice for me that's great. If they move on to one of my competitors that's fine it's good for the industry. And if they leave me and go back to college that's fine because it's good for the country. How do you feel about hiring, do these folks stay with you after they go, do they spread their wings and go on for other jobs tell us a little bit about what happens at the conclusion of an apprenticeship. Well when it comes to, especially the ones that come from, you know, the calling shows directly. I'll find out if you can get them in their last quarter of their education, and then you go into your apprenticeship program. Usually we have probably 100% retention rate. You know, stay with us for, you know, probably two or three years, a lot of them have a, you know, career, you know, stay with us, you know, for as long as they, you know, until I got out of college. But, you know, always, always stress, you know, being you know I did my apprenticeship myself, you know years and years ago, but you know, I encourage everybody to, you know, to come in, learn as much as you can, and then go on in your field and learn from the next guy you think is you know who can, you know somebody you know I try to learn on the best shift you can and go to the next You know, we get an opportunity to open your own place, usually only get one crack out of it go hey mom dad can you lend me some money to open our own restaurant. You know, usually only get one and you want to be successful so we have a you know an excellent track record the people who graduated from our apprenticeship program and we've left you know our restaurant group are, you know they have their own restaurants some of them have you know multiple restaurants so whatever you're doing you know and with the help of Mitchell and his crew has been really really successful. We've helped you know, I think we've contributed to field you know where they, I think when you leave Magnolia is our group. I think you can work at any restaurant in the country. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's some serious restaurant business down your way. And lastly, before I go to Ro, Roana is what recommendations or advice to have for anybody in hospitality. Or really any employers who are just starting out on this we're working with sites all over the country and the hardest thing for many of them is to get started so what sort of recommendations or thoughts to have. Well, like, speaking before myself is you know you want to tweak your program to fit your needs is there's not one set program, eight of set parameters and then you tweak yours to fit whatever your needs are whatever your establishment is what type of food you're doing, but it works out well but you know what we're doing now we're working on is, you know, like somebody mentioned before, you know the underserved or the minority community is that we have a lot of the restaurant workers who realize that you know, they never really graduated from high school, you know they reason to error their way so now they're they want to want to get a certificate they want to get their education so we're really working on that program now we're putting them through our apprenticeship program, we're getting them an education so at least they're getting a GED they're coming out with a working certificate so they're feeling a lot better by themselves and we're giving a reason to further pursue their career. Because you know it's hard to pay the you know it's hard to pay your rent and your bills, you know, on a minimum wage so we try to give them a, you know, a way out and with that program, you know, you guys out there think about it. It's such a win-win situation for your local community, the people that you serve, they can come out, you know, with a high school education with a journeyman certificate and with a college education pay for without owning any college debt student debt. It's, you know, it's a win for everybody. I highly encourage you guys to get involved and get started, you know, choose you can. Great. I'm going to edit this cut that out and make a commercial out of it that you're absolutely right no college debt. And to me these programs are not secondhand they're not alternatives to college there. Everything in my view is equal to the preparation that two or four years can give you in the, in the workplace in the marketplace so. Yeah. So, Don, thanks so much. Stick around, we may come back to you. I got a bunch of questions for all of you I'm sure they're going to give me the hook to not too soon but Rowan, am I pronouncing that right? Rowanna Payne with HCA Healthcare? Yes, Rowanna. Rowanna, I've seen you before we may have had this conversation before. Anyway, thanks for joining us Rowanna. Tell us a little bit about HCA Healthcare if you would. Well, we are Trident Medical Center here in Charleston, South Carolina, which is a subsidiary of HCA. We are about a 300-bed hospital. We're in acute care trauma hospital, and we have had apprentices with us now for five years. And so, we started out, Mitch and I were friends away from work, and he approached me away from work just socially chatting and telling me about the program and asked if we might be interested in having youth in our patient care tech program. And I said, sounds good. I'm going to run it by HR. Got to talk to the CNO, you know, do the C-suite and make sure everybody is happy with what the idea. And Mitch and I pitched it, and they said go for it, and the rest is history. So, the moral is never go out to dinner with Mitch because he's going to hit you up for apprentices. Now, we talk about everything. And it was a good segue. You know, Mitch did the right thing and laid some creativity. And I'm not sure, but I believe we are the first hospital in the Charleston area to use the patient care tech apprentices, and they've repranded us to pre-nursing apprentices now instead of patient care tech. And the other hospitals have since jumped on board as well. Wow. That's, yeah, I've seen that happen in communities. You know, you can't get the upper edge on the competition because you all are challenging, you're all struggling for the same talent, right, in the same labor shed. So, so it's tough. So, you know, you've been doing this for five years, you've obviously had some apprentices that have completed their work with you. So, as you look back on the last five years, how has that worked out? Have they stayed to continue to work with you? Have they advanced on the college? Have they dropped out and gone to see Don and work in a restaurant? What sort of reflections do you have now at the last five years? We've seen the gamut. We've seen some that have started and have just flat out said this isn't my cup of tea and have left the program. We've had others from a scholastic standpoint that could not keep the grades up to make the program work. We had others where parents were pushing them through the program and they did not want it and finally spoke up. And then we've had the opposite end of this back term where we have had the folks go through, go through the program, complete it, go on to nursing school and come to work with us. So, that creates a nice pipeline and the advantage to us in healthcare is if we can get them as the high school kids that are truly interested in healthcare, then their enthusiasm and willingness to work hard to become a better caregiver go up. So, we get a better product when they finish. So, when they get through with the apprenticeship program, they go into the nursing program, they stay with us working as patient care tax in the hospital, then they come to us as graduate nurses. And so, their orientation and onboarding process at that point becomes a little quicker because they already know the system and they start at a little bit of a higher salary than somebody with no experience coming in as registered nurse. So, you sort of made the same point that Debbie made earlier, which is, you know, growing your own, or, you know, spending time and investing in these workers, you know, you really get to customize it to your needs, right, to what the values are of HCA healthcare, right, or if you just, you know, people talk about buying and building a workforce, right, you can go out on the market, put out an ad and buy a worker, right, or you can build a workforce through things like apprenticeships, which it sounds like, you know, both you and Debbie were sort of talking about how that works. So, so here we have a major healthcare facility, and we have 16 year olds and 17 year olds working in there and around patients isn't that dangerous, dangerous isn't that risky, don't, you know, do people. I mean, these are not candy stripers, right, these are people who are working and getting paid, but they're young, how do you trust them in a hospital environment. And that starts when they complete their applications with Trident Tech. Trident Tech does a fantastic job screening and eliminating those that are not meeting the criteria or not completing applications, and then they send them over to us, and we review them, and then we interview them. We put them through a hiring interview just like I would any other employee, and we selectively pick who we're looking for. And we tend to not lean towards the 16 year olds we're looking for somebody that's a little bit more mature, and believe it or not there's a difference between a 16 year old and a 17 year old. We tend to pick rising seniors into the program because of that maturity level. Now, we also make sure that they understand that they're not going to get to work in specific areas within the hospital from a liability standpoint. We allow our apprentices to work in the med surge adult units so they can't work with women's, they can't work with children, they can't work in the ED or behavioral health, and that's a safety process for them, as well as for the patients. We also complete a CNA or certified nursing assistant curriculum before they even get to set foot in the hospital and start orientation with us. So that sets these kids up a leg above a lot of other people that apply for patient care tech positions, because they're coming with a solid base already that we're just going to continue to build on. So that helps cut down on our liability. The other thing that cuts down on our liability is we lay expectations before them, just as the other folks have said, they've got to keep their grades up. You may wind up having to give up going to the program because you're having to work on a weekend to get your hours in for us. They cannot work past 11 o'clock because they're not adults yet. And so we're concerned about their safety as well. And some of these kids are still on driver's permits. So we have to be very mindful about how they're getting to and from work. So we do take all of that very seriously. So what I hear you saying is, and this you know this happens in manufacturing to where there's a lot of dangerous equipment, you're managing your apprenticeship system right certain things you can do certain things you can't do, but those expectations and the way to manage that. You're not going to get in trouble because you have sort of a guide and outline to what they can and can't do right. So that's fabulous so I'm running short on time so I'm going to move on but but how would you talk to. So healthcare is a really interesting field for apprenticeships right healthcare has always had practicums and clinicals and things like that but rarely had an apprenticeship like things for nurses or, you know, physical therapist or whatever but but what advice would you have for the health care industry which is looking more and more to apprenticeship all over the country. A few are doing youth apprenticeship. You're definitely a trailblazer here but what what advice would you have for any of those employers employer sorry health care systems that are interested in apprenticeship for youth. The first thing you have to do is make sure that you've got the support of your C-suite, your upper level management. HR has to understand that these kids are going through a hiring process a little bit differently than a regular employee. And they have to understand that we have when they're accepted into the program. All we're doing is the cursory work to make sure that the background check is okay that their issues with their drug and screen testing and and all of that stuff is the way that it should be. Once we get them hired, we've got to make sure that there's a well defined orientation process with one person coordinating the entire process that follows up with them to make sure that they're meeting their hours the way that they should be that they're meeting their check off list for skill sets that they're keeping up with what Trident needs to know in regards of the things that they're doing taking care of the patients they have a app that they're typing in what they're doing to care for the patients. And that has got to be all kept up and we keep them on orientation a whole lot longer than we would somebody that is coming in as an adult into the role so we keep them from August all the way through till December on orientation before we give them a little bit more autonomy. So you've got to just keep a close watch on them and be very supportive and communication is the key. So I have one more question for I'm not going to let you off that quite yet so by the way audience feel free to ask questions or chat them or actually we have a Google sheet in which you can send your questions on the Q&A tab or link but So there's a question from Jill here that says, besides the fact that she says you all are so impressive. How did you navigate the scheduling process for the related instruction how did you make sure that they got off to go to school that they were finishing their high school classes that they were going over to try to take classes. It must be one heck of a matrix you did but how did you figure out the timing and scheduling of students. That was easy. Truly out of out of everything that was the easiest part because try to attack tracks their grades for us. Then as they finish their coursework, I get their grades and anybody that does not pass a course, then it becomes my decision through the hospital to determine whether or not we're going to keep them on through the program. Are we going to wash them out of the program and let them stay on as a patient care tech. So that piece was fairly easy and what I do is sit down with the kids when they start and they tell me what times that they can work. And then I build their schedule based on what they tell me that they can work and some of these kids choose to work. I have our shift on a Saturday and maybe an eight hour shift on a Sunday or they'll work for five hours after school in the afternoon and we've got the support of our managers on the med surge units that allow these guys to come in and work those type of hours while they're on orientation. Once they come off orientation in January, then it becomes the manager's responsibility to manage their schedules with them and they're meant to meet the expectations of what's required of the patient care tax on those floors. Okay, that's great. That's great. And Debbie and Don do you have scheduling problems I mean particularly in the restaurant business you guys probably have scheduling that changes every week or two. Very quick because I need to get to Don first, and then David but Don any scheduling problems in your industry. I don't for me. No, not not really. We, you know, I don't really have any schedule problems with them, you know, like everybody else restaurants are busy during the holiday seasons, and you know, you take that a consideration a bit because you know, you know everybody wants to have Christmas off or it wants to have Thanksgiving off Easter all the stuff like that. If anything that's probably the only time really have scheduled issues will be during the holiday season. And then we just deal with that you know as best we can. All right, and Debbie how about you you're, you're pretty I assume you're mostly a nine to five operations scheduling an issue with you. We're mostly nine to five so hours are and scheduling is really not an issue for us. Okay, great, great. Yeah, hospitals, you know 24 hour operations are a little bit more challenging. Talk to Don and then I will wrap up with David and Don Smith with who are you Hendrick auto is that who you're with about that. I'm Don Smith with hinders automotive group I'm director of community relations and then the guy to go out and hire the apprentices. All right, so how big is your organization you have multiple sites and dealerships and all that are just one central how big are you and how many apprentices do you take on a year. Basically, we have nine stores a body shop in a in a consolidated business office in Charleston, we have 105 stores nationwide. So, why, I mean I think I know the answer to this but I don't know why how and why did you guys get into apprenticeships it's a, I mean it's a terrific industry because there's, it's always changing there's new things people need to learn, whether it's sales or finance or body shop or, or mechanical so tell us a little bit about why you got involved and where do you focus your apprentices on. Okay, basically, I was at the GM of the bubble store here in town for 20 years, and I found out that we had to go out and recruit technicians. And basically, after a couple years I realized we had to grow technicians. So when the youth apprentice program came about. We just signed up, because you say we got to grow apprentices so the best way to get them is out of high school and right into dealerships. Before then, we was in the high schools doing a lot of volunteer work so we started talking about the youth apprentice programs and get people interested in being technicians, but most people who are technicians with a dirty job they didn't, they never been a NASCAR and seeing how clean the floors are and the settings are and everything in automobile business going to computer computer driven so they didn't know that. So we sold that the whole time was in high schools. Yeah, it is, it is so far different than it was 10 years ago or even five years ago. So what again it can be a dangerous location and auto body shop if you don't know what you're doing how do you manage risk and liability and where do you focus your time with the students is it on mechanical work or other sorts of occupations. Honestly, we make sure we had a mistake when we started in four years ago. I was recruiting everybody I could, anybody wanted to be a technician. I say just sign them up to be a youth apprentice technician. So the first year I fell on my face because we're getting 10th and length graders ahead. No clue about it. And then we found out some 10th and length graders and hit driver's license so they couldn't drive a car. You know so after the after that fall on my face for a while. We kind of focus on serious 11th graders who was serious of being a technician, and I talked to their parents, I recruited them I recruited their parents and make sure that they want to be apprentices. And then for 12th graders when they graduated, I look for them because they got driver's license. They don't have to worry about the prongs they didn't have to worry about football games baseball game basketball game. They don't have to worry about football. So we now we mostly 12th graders ready graduate. I love hearing good things you've done but I'll see about mistakes that are made because I think that's how a lot of people can learn and there's a lot of pressure just to throw students, students into jobs. But my question is a little bit more specific it's not on the list that I have but but I'm running into this all the time so you have nine stores do you have apprentices at all stores. We have apprentice in all stores but Volvo Volvo get their apprentices from the Volvo plant. Okay, they run the apprentices to the plant. So one of the really important things about apprenticeships is that the site location has a supervisor mentor has somebody who gets it who can not only supervise the student make sure things are safe. Also provide support and encouragement is needed. How do you spread that across nine shops, I mean that's not the easiest thing to say okay everybody we need to get you all on the same page with this apprenticeship work because you might have somebody who's been around for 40 years is I don't want to be bothered with some kid or other people who don't quite understand what you're doing or are in the same position how do you deal with with spreading that culture across online online sites we get that a lot. One thing, every store looking for technicians means a technician shortest like everybody else have a shortage. Another thing that if you live in Somerville or North Charleston or goose creek, you work in the North Charleston area, because you cannot get to West Ashley from Somerville in the morning to get the work now found that out by mistakes. You live in Mount Pleasant or johns Island James Island West Ashley, then you work on the Savannah high, highway stores. So that's how we kind of focus it, but everybody want me, like our Toyota stores right off street and tech, try to Toyota store they do the best job out to your store does the best job and training youth apprentice, and they want all of them just like I want all the youth apprentice to come through try to attack, but you can't have it you got to spread the love to everybody. Great. So, and you guys are new car dealers for the most part. New and used. Okay, so there's there's plenty of work to go around. Okay. So what recommendations would you have whether it's the automotive industry or anybody on that supply chain or really just any employer. When you start out what would you tell them to avoid in the first year what would you tell them to focus on in the first year. It's probably totally different and restaurants and hospitals and in the automobile business because like I say, I focus on 12 freighters ready graduate because I know these serious, and then I still talk to all the parents, you know, because I got us, I'm selling everybody, because this is career, you know, if you'd be a technician technician stay with you forever. You know we got technicians that we've been with Kendrick for 35 36 years and one manufacturer. So, I sell hard and say this is career, you know you start off this what you got to do you got to go to school. You got to work. Why are you in school you're making money you're making good money with some of your friends are going to college and they, they still living off mom and dad. You know, I have a lot, you know, we have 35 youth apprentice that we recruited. We have nine youth apprentice to drop out of program, but we out of the nine we have five to stay with the dealerships. You know, couple of them became service writers I had one Scott as a service writer, and he's our number one service writer in town. And then the other other four guys are just lube and tech guys, they just change will rotate tires, and that's good because that's what we need. And then a couple, couple people that we had to fire, because they wasn't doing the right thing, like any other employee. You say that's probably like any other employee, you know and they said, you know the danger is somebody says oh my print had to fire an apprentice I'm done with them while you do that with your other employees to exactly. Well Don Smith with Kendrick auto thanks so much in the interest of time I'm going to move I say the best till last David Brown, sorry to make your way but I'm really interested to hear about key on tech and a little bit about your apprenticeship programs tell me about your company if you could. Thanks for setting a high expectation. Thanks for hosting this to this is a good discussion. So, so I'm with key on North America we're part of the key on group, which is a company that's headquartered in Germany worldwide about 38,000 employees. This is the second largest company in the world manufacturing material handling equipment so you think forklifts palette jacks reach trucks is, and we also have a very large business and what we call supply chain solutions which is automation sorting so basically we do everything that can. It's about like an Amazon warehouse, which everybody's ordering from these days, we can supply all the hardware software and equipment to make that building run so that's where our company does and in Somerville, which is a suburb of Charleston is our North American headquarters. We've got about 300 employees in North America right now probably going to be 500 within the next year and a half to two years. And how did you get engaged with apprenticeship did it. You know, Eric, I've been in the company for five years, and I came from another very large German manufacturing company that had an adult apprenticeship program or regular sort of true apprenticeship program not use apprenticeship program. Where we grew our own folks to become mechatronics technicians mechanics electricians, etc. So I was familiar with the concept from that experience. And then, and also that company that I was previously with had a very tight relationship with tried and tech. So shout out to Mitch and Rob Wiggins and those guys over there. So when I came to Keon in 2016. I saw the opportunity, not only to tap into the youth apprenticeship program from a labor supply standpoint, but just as much as a community outreach program. So I view it as sort of it's two ways. Number one, it helps the company, but number two, it's, it's helping to support education in the community. So, so we started back in late 17. So we've had about four years of experience. We've had some ups and downs, but overall it's been a very good experience for us. And the and let's see here, Don, I know you have a meeting coming up. So when you do have to go just sign off. Thank you very much for your time. So, so David, what, what are you focusing? How many do you take a year and what are you focusing them on? We take maybe two a year. We're not a huge company. So in most of those folks work in our manufacturing processes. We do have one gentleman who I think was on the previous panel. He came in with a clear desire to go to four year ME type degree. So we got him on board and he is completed his apprenticeship and will begin finishing his last two years for a mechanical engineering degree at the Citadel here in South Canada beginning next year. So he'll end up hopefully becoming one of our star mechanical engineers that supports our manufacturing operation. And in manufacturing any liability issues for you guys or do you just manage it away from hazardous work. We do a well first of all, you have to be 18 to operate a forklift. Okay, we make forklifts so that's kind of a dichotomy for us. So we also like I think Don or someone else mentioned we try to steer more towards the folks that are seniors or even post grads, maybe just graduating from high school, so they may already be 18. But we appreciate tried and tech providing the liability insurance for us. We have had one case of a youth apprentice that engaged in some, let's say, I guess you could call it horse play, which ended up costing him his job, because it was a safety incident. Those things happen, you know, it could be a little kid doing it or it could be a 38 year old person doing it. Really important lessons in the reality of the workplace I might add, which is the other byproduct of apprenticeship right it's not just to figure out the skills and the occupation but how to get to work on time, how to get along with people and how not to horse play. Absolutely. So do you have any trouble with your apprentices getting to the jobs or transportation issues we got a lot of questions about that. Or do they make it okay. No, we always know they all make it, you know, obviously we have attendance standards that are in place and in one thing that tried and tech does which I would commend to other parts of the country is they have. Last year did not have but in typical years they have like a recruiting event on a weekend in February where there's like a job fair on this so in the students attend with their parents. And at that point they get to go around and see different companies and meet with reps from the companies and we get to talk not just with the students but with the parents to find out, you know, is this student going to be able to make it are they reliable can they get do they have transportation etc. So to me that's one of the greatest value as the Trident gives us here in Charleston. We're going to have to wrap up in a minute or two I don't know they're probably going to give me the hook yep I got to wrap it up, but real quick, if I could, David. Did you have to sell it up the chain to your leadership, or are you the leadership who had to sell it down the chain to the onsite supervisors online supervisors. I didn't have to sell it whatsoever, because the people that I partner with that are my peers. It also worked in other companies that had engaged with apprenticeship so in our company has a lot of new leaders in it. A new meaning relatively short company. So we all saw this is a great opportunity to try to mimic some things that we've seen from our previous lives. So it was great. It is great. And, you know, there are a lot of foreign companies Switzerland Germany etc, who are familiar with apprenticeship so it's not a big leap with those companies as well. I'm going to have to sign off but Debbie I got one quick question for you because I think it's a good one. When you hold on David I'll get back but Debbie did you get. When you had to talk to an international cyber audience, were they saying youth apprenticeships are you nuts. Did you get any of that or were they fairly well accepting of it. Surprisingly they were very well accepting of it. Okay, there was a lot of questions coming from other employers concerning that and yeah they were very receptive about it. That's great. So I guess security clearances will become a very important thing for their future and they better watch what they do so they don't blow their security clearance. Exactly. Great. And David, you know I just wanted to talk about, you know, the, you know, college college colleges to call we all get you gave a great example of young man who came to the apprenticeship program then went on to be a mechanical engineer is trying to become one. Do you feel that any of the students feel like they're less than college material or do they do you think they're getting they feel they're getting an advantage over college. Do they see it as a second rate program do you think or they see it as a top rate program. Absolutely. I don't think people see it. I think the people that are interested in working in a company like mine are realizing that, you know, you go to try to detect for free or nearly free pay for. And then you finish your apprenticeship and if you want to hang on you can make a very, very nice income at a young age and have zero college debt. I think that's a real calling card for folks these days. I agree with that and I'm going to get the hook I probably should have hooked off about two minutes or three minutes ago but I want to thank you all for joining me. Debbie with cyber Don with HM GI Charleston. Well, so everybody else Don Smith with Hendrick David Brown with Keon. I'm sure I forgot Rona with HCA healthcare anyway, thank you all. You guys got an incredible employee employer culture down in the Charleston region I know in a large measure. That's to the foundation that our friends at Trident has laid and some of the key partners they have including employer so I want to thank you for your time I do this nationally. And today I'm always so impressed with the folks in South Carolina and Charleston. With that, I'll sign off. Thank you sorry I ran over and let's continue on to the next session. Take care. Thanks Eric. Thank you. Hi. Thank you. Hello everyone. I'm Shelton doll. I'm a program associate with the pie team at the Center on Education Labor in New America. Many thanks to our amazing employer panelists for sharing their experiences and insights with us and to our moderator Eric sounds now. We have eastern time for our next panel creating seamless credentials and careers, aligning K through 12 and higher education system through youth apprenticeship, moderated by Mimi Lufkin from the National Alliance for partnerships and equity.