Community College Journal - December 2010/January 2011

FEATURE

electronics, mechanics, robotics, motors, and controls. Other areas of study include safety, leadership, and team building.

“A lot of the people who go through the training are multiskilled maintenance people,” LeBlanc says. “We offer practical and theoretical training; this is truly a working academy.”

By Rail

Another transportation sector experiencing increased employer demand is the railway industry. Dakota County Technical College (DCTC) in Rosemount, Minn., for example, offers a railroad conductor training program with help from Canadian Pacific Railway and Union Pacific Railroad.

When the program launched five years ago, railroad companies operating in Minnesota cited a 40 percent projected retirement rate among railroad workers and an estimated 50 percent increase in commerce over the next 10 years, says Larry Raddatz, director of customized training at the college. The railroads “did not want to be committing resources to training when they needed people to operate trains,” Raddatz says.

Canadian Pacific and Union Pacific donated equipment, supplies, instructional materials, and staff time to develop curriculum and to plan and construct an on-campus rail yard. Four retired conductors were hired to teach and assist in the classroom.

The 16-credit certificate program consists of seven weeks of classroom and hands-on activities and an eight-week internship. As many as 70 students go through the program each year.

The on-campus rail yard is a quarter of a mile long and includes three tracks, two switches, six rail cars, and a track mobile (a diesel tractor to move the cars).

Raddatz credits DCTC’s ability to work with government and industry partners with helping to sustain the program. “We have been able to keep the cost lower with the support of the railroads and a state grant we received when we started the program,” she says.

“There’s been consistently healthy
demand for people with railroad
conductor skills,” Raddatz says. “With
the exception of 2009—the height of
the recession—there have always been
many more jobs than DCTC has had
graduates.”
The college offers other transporta-
tion programs, including truck driving,
diesel mechanics, and auto mechanics.
And railroad companies and other trans-
portation industry recruiters are regu-
larly on campus to recruit graduates.

“We receive requests from all over the country for our graduates,” Raddatz says. “A couple of years ago, the Alaska Railroad called because they needed 30 conductors as soon as possible. I even received an e-mail from South Africa

Kentucky Community College and
Technical System students use a hydraulic
trainer at a Toyota assembly plant.

A student at Dakota County Technical
College in Rosemount, Minn., works on a
railcar.

wondering if we could train conductors
for them. Earlier this week, I received
an e-mail from a U.S. soldier deployed in
Iraq who wanted to know how to apply
when he gets home.”
DCTC is not alone. Gateway Com-
munity College (GCC) in North Haven,
Conn., also offers a railroad-training
program. In October 2010, the college
launched the first railroad engineering
technology program in the northeast-
ern United States. Gateway will offer a
new associate degree in railroad engi-
neering technology (RET) beginning in
the spring of 2011.

Work on the RET program began in 2009 after officials from Metro-North Commuter Railroad approached GCC to enhance the education of Metro-North employees eligible for tuition assistance through its employee union. Metro-North needed a training program to backfill anticipated retirement vacancies, says Paul Silberquit, division director of Gateway’s Engineering and Applied Technologies Division.

Students who enroll in the RET degree program can choose from two specialties: electromechanical or signaling and communications.

Silberquit estimates that 30 to 40 full- and part-time students will enroll in the program each year. That includes students now in the college, new students from high schools, people looking to make a career change, and current railroad employees interested in pursuing an associate degree.

Even after earning a degree, new hires will likely have to go through in-house training at railroad companies, Silberquit says. “One of the goals of the program is to shorten that in-house training, so new employees are coming in better prepared and can get assigned to work areas much sooner,” he says.

In the Air

Aviation industry training programs also are taking off at community colleges. Mid-South Community College in West Memphis, Ark., offers a new program to train aircraft and power plant (A&P) technicians.