I know the CEO of this company. Her dad started it and passed it down to her. She's a fantastic person, whip smart, and a good friendly leader. They have 2 locations I think. One in South Carolina and one in pa.
They currently need 40 machinists to keep up with aerospace demand.
this is the payoff of the new Aerospace resurgence in the us. Been 10-15 years in the making. Airbus and Boeing have very strong order books with thousands of firm aircraft orders in arrears.
If I wasn't so old I would sign up for the apprenticeship for the SC location.
I had a customer in Cleveland, Ohio that made heat treating furnaces (North American Manufacturing) and they had a slew of machinists at one point. They quit looking for machinists in Cleveland and used a broker that was finding machinists in Poland.
Could not help but notice St. Stephen, SC is located in Berkeley County.
Machinist must be a fairly solid career, based on how busy every one in town is around here. They're always backlogged.
I'm in the industry, and if you have a pulse and an alarm clock, you've got a guaranteed job running a machine.
If you have any intelligence/motivation and can get into the setup, tooling or programming side, you've got your choice and a solid career, most anywhere in the country.
Keith Tanner wrote: Machinist must be a fairly solid career, based on how busy every one in town is around here. They're always backlogged.
I know the primary machine shop we use at work is absolutely swamped right now and always at a loss for quality help. I don't know what the numbers are showing on a macro scale at the moment, but just in terms of what I am seeing in our little corner of the world it certainly seems like manufacturing is back on the upswing in this country. Lots of companies looking to onshore projects back from the Far East as well, which is great to see.
WonkoTheSane wrote: I'm in the industry, and if you have a pulse and an alarm clock, you've got a guaranteed job running a machine.
I need to find one of those jobs for my(most likely autistic) step-son. He's a hard worker & never missed a day of work or school, but his cognitive skills are sadly pretty deficient.
Hard worker and punctual - he'd fit in on a construction road crew. If you're not 10 minutes early, you're late.
In reply to Keith Tanner:
He just had one of those jobs, but they let him go after a month because they need someone who could get a CDL. He struggles to back up his Corolla, and his first time driving on the interstate was the day before he started. He turns 24 next month.
He really wants - needs - a job with consistency and repetition. Something where he can do the same job every day, at the same location. Sadly there really isn't any manufacturing here on the coast though.
My father and brother were actual old school machinists. Dad was disabled before I was born and brother bounced around the little machine shops after all the big dogs folded up shop. We use to have Fisher Body, Western States machine Co, Mosler and Diebold all within a couple miles of where I grew up. By the time I got out of highschool every single one of those big companies that employed huge numbers of people were gone. Anyway, brother finally got a decent gig to work out his days until retirement. Unless his health forces him to stop working early.
I could probably do it easy enough.
Buddy is a self taught machinist. He's switched jobs a lot because constantly getting called by ex employers offering rediculous pay increases.
My job is in demand, but not that in demand.
I would love get a job like this and I live reasonably close to the SC plant. Thing is that I don't see any openings for the SC location on their website. Am I missing something?
I don't have any machining experience but I do have a bachelor's degree in computer science
I would love to get back into a career as a machinist.
Sadly the apprenticeship I did was not through the Department of Labor, rather a national association. So my employment records died with the companies I worked for and I have no way to document the hours I worked.
Datsun310Guy wrote: I had a customer in Cleveland, Ohio that made heat treating furnaces (North American Manufacturing) and they had a slew of machinists at one point. They quit looking for machinists in Cleveland and used a broker that was finding machinists in Poland.
When was this, roughly?
I had a childhood friend from Poland whose family immigrated in 1984-85ish. His father was a machinist.
Pete Gossett wrote:WonkoTheSane wrote: I'm in the industry, and if you have a pulse and an alarm clock, you've got a guaranteed job running a machine.I need to find one of those jobs for my(most likely autistic) step-son. He's a hard worker & never missed a day of work or school, but his cognitive skills are sadly pretty deficient.
Pete - if get in touch with the local chamber of commerce, or with the local tech school. The job he's looking for would be called a machine operator. A 16(?) certificate program from a tech school would practically guarantee employment as a setup guy if he's interested in starting out a bit "higher.". The school I'm about to start teaching at has a 98% industry placement rate for the manufacturing program.
Posted this on Practical Machinist.
In reply to WonkoTheSane:
Thanks, I'll help him search for any jobs with that title!
I doubt tech school would be an option for him though: we didn't know if he was graduating HS until the final week, just because of poor grades. He did 2 semesters in the welding program at our local community college - he can lay a far better bead than I can, but he never passed the blueprint reading.
Okay, I think I'm ready to get off the dime. I've been watching Project Binky episodes while I've been unemployed and I think I'd really like to learn to become a machinist. The problem is that I'm knocking on 60 years old. Suggestions? Apprentice programs available for old farts like me or must I resign myself to being S.O.L. and T.F.O.?
Edit: Found a CNC Machinist program at the local Adult Ed but completion does NOT result in a certification of any kind. It appears to be online and I'm not certain I understand how you can learn to be a CNC machinist without ever working the actual equipment. Color me very dubious....
WonkoTheSane said:I'm in the industry, and if you have a pulse and an alarm clock, you've got a guaranteed job running a machine.
If you have any intelligence/motivation and can get into the setup, tooling or programming side, you've got your choice and a solid career, most anywhere in the country.
It feels good reading this when I'm almost done with a CMM degree.
Meadville isn't too far from me :), wish I had skill set to help them.
stroker said:Okay, I think I'm ready to get off the dime. I've been watching Project Binky episodes while I've been unemployed and I think I'd really like to learn to become a machinist. The problem is that I'm knocking on 60 years old. Suggestions? Apprentice programs available for old farts like me or must I resign myself to being S.O.L. and T.F.O.?
Edit: Found a CNC Machinist program at the local Adult Ed but completion does NOT result in a certification of any kind. It appears to be online and I'm not certain I understand how you can learn to be a CNC machinist without ever working the actual equipment. Color me very dubious....
Yeah, the local tech schools over here are all in-classroom instruction for their certificate programs. Here's an example of the two courses offered by my local place, Manchester Community College (in CT). I'd think the biggest thing these can offer besides the actual instruction on running real machines (which the students spend about 30% of their time on) is the networking opportunities to local manufacturers. Nearly 100% of the students involved in these courses had job offers before leaving the program, so that gives you a massive leg up if you're not already "in the industry."
Pete - How'd your son ever make out?
I'm a Machinist with no formal training or certificate. I started out spinning handles on manual machines and learning the trade on the job. Got hired on as an "operator" at my next gig and started learning hand programming on mills and lathes. 8 years and several jobs later, I was running a small prototype shop producing tooling and one off parts for a small manufacturing plant.
Meanwhile I had gone to school and earned an engineering degree. Post graduation I spent 3 years with no direct involvement with the machining working as a manufacturing engineer.
Now I am an NC programmer with a major aerospace company using the best machine tools and software the industry has to offer and I feel like I have the best job of all my engineering peers.
Machining is awesome! If you are detail oriented and good with numbers I highly recommend it. Even if you start at the bottom, most shop owners will let you cross train and with some motivation you can learn tons and do some really clever things with setups and programming.
There's a local CNC course which is completely online:
but there's no industry certification for it. All they do is give you a certificate of "completion". The only other viable option is one of the local Vo-Tec schools but their program is two years. Does anyone think there might be some benefit to simply going to local machine shops and asking if they'd have any interest in an "older" apprentice?
ncjay said:Could not help but notice St. Stephen, SC is located in Berkeley County.
I live in that county. St. Stevens is about 15 miles from me.
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