Uptime: Applied-STEM Program Meets 3M Needs

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education prepares students for college and careers. Last month’s “Uptime” column (Aug. 2015) made the case for aligning STEM education content with business and industry careers and emphasizing hands-on applied STEM learning. The aging Baby-Boomer workforce, coupled with advances in technology in almost every plant, facility, building, and process, have created lingering skills gaps in today’s workplace.

Careers and high-paying jobs in installation, maintenance, and repair occupations often go begging for qualified applicants because of the lack of skills needed in today’s rapidly changing workplace. Students who finish high school with a good STEM foundation and pursue a one- or two-year technical-education career program will almost certainly find good jobs—rewarding, high-paying ones—in business and industry.

3M and STEM education

An applied-STEM learning approach would fuel the curiosity that enables a student’s real-world troubleshooting/problem-solving ability and be of tremendous benefit to business and industry.

3M Co., St. Paul, MN, is making big waves in the labor pool by investing in STEM education. Recent conversations with Tom G. Mayer, manager of Plant Engineering Global Excellence at 3M, revealed how beneficial the company’s STEM-education partnerships have become: They’re a boon for students, teachers, schools, colleges, and prospective employers.

He described a STEM pilot that the corporation initiated in Minnesota through a partnership between Alexandria Technical & Community College (ATCC), Alexandria, MN, and the 3M Foundation. In the past two years, the Foundation has gifted $250,000 in support of this industry-driven effort–support that will likely double in 2016 given the program’s successes to date. Through its Center for Applied Mechatronics, ATCC has also garnered the interest and support of other industry partners in creating similar programs.

Mayer pointed to what other maintenance-and-reliability professionals have long recognized: industry’s increasing need for multi-skilled technical resources to work in highly automated environments. “The 3M-ATCC partnerships,” he said, “seek to provide students with today’s skills in the area of mechanics, systems, and automation. The STEM equipment that the company has provided to schools emphasizes those multi-skills that are essential to be successful in American manufacturing.”

According to Mayer, prior to the launch of this STEM-education effort, 3M, like many other manufacturers in the area, struggled to find qualified candidates for its highly paid engineering-technician opportunities. That’s no longer a problem, he explained. “Qualified candidates are readily available for our open positions.”

In addition to generating awareness of career and technical education, 3M has also ramped up its efforts to interest students in and support their pursuit of technical education by offering internships in careers that simply require a two-year degree.

The combination of hands-on, career-oriented STEM education has a financial benefit too. As Mayer said, “Considering today’s cost of college and student loans, those hired into a technician role at 3M with a two-year degree in Mechatronics earn an income that exceeds most of those who pursue a traditional four-year degree. That analysis is something that we share when speaking to students in middle school and high school.”

Getting students involved in career-oriented STEM education, according to Mayer, begins well before they enter a technical-college program. “3M has seen success,” he said, “in all of the high schools that we support.”

As an example, he cited Hutchinson High School, Hutchinson, MN, which has adopted a careers-pathway approach in delivery of its STEM curriculum—including development of an Advanced Manufacturing Careers path. In a post on his school’s website, Hutchinson High School principal Patrick Walsh described activities leading up to the development of the TigerPath initiative. “These Academies,” he explained, “are created with the idea of merging traditional education with hands-on experiences rooted in real-world workforce opportunities.”

Major themes include:

• Hands-on, workforce-based skills classes that begin in middle school and early high school
• Post-secondary (college) credit in each pathway
• Career internships, work-based learning, and apprenticeships infused in each pathway
• The TigerPath connection to professional and technical educational opportunities.

Each year, 3M and Alexandria Technical & Community College sponsor a curriculum-development workshop in which the company’s technicians and plant-engineering leaders, ATCC instructors, and high-school teachers discuss development of curriculum that promotes industry application and career awareness. Significant success, according to Mayer, comes from the availability of 3M technician resources to assist as classroom instructors in their communities’ high schools.

Industry’s technological advances, coupled with the loss of seasoned, Baby Boomer workers, requires us to ramp up our efforts to provide applied, STEM-based educational options for students.

STEM-based technician jobs abound

No business or industry sector is immune to technological advances. Whether they’re called mechanization, computerization, automation, or just plain technology, such advances have historically been used to replace lower-skilled human labor. In the process, they’ve changed the types and meaning of work in many segments of our society for generations. The current wave, fueled by low-cost microprocessors, advanced-capability software, and precision mechanical devices, will continue to have an enormous impact on jobs.

It’s a simple equation: As advances in technology reach the workplace, the need for higher-skill-level technicians increases. Unfortunately, thousands upon thousands of technician jobs and careers have gone largely unnoticed for decades because they’re spread across so many different business and industry sectors.

Countless applied-STEM career opportunities are available—opportunities that will spark the interest and curiosity in generations of young people. Technicians who install, maintain, and repair advanced-technology equipment and systems will continue to be in demand across hundreds of different business and industry segments, including:

• Consumer products
• Energy exploration and production
• Healthcare facilities
• Biotechnology
• Pharmaceuticals
• Aerospace and defense
• Transportation
• Information technology
• Telecommunications
• Mining and materials
• Primary metals
• Power and utilities
• Mass media
• Manufacturing (all types)
• Petrochemical processing
• Distribution/fulfillment centers
• Hotels/resorts, theme parks.

The point is this: Jobs and rewarding careers are there for those who have the skills. Applied-STEM education will greatly improve the growing skills gaps we experience in maintenance and reliability. Let’s learn from 3M, Alexander Technical & Community College, and Hutchinson High School and help our educational counterparts boost their STEM programs.

To learn more, visit:

— 3m.com
— alextech.edu
— alextech.edu/mechatronics
— isd423.org/high-school/tigerpath