Skilled Trades Go Begging While Schools Turn Out Excess Professionals

Schools are turning out a surplus of professionals and a shortage of technicians mainly to please parents, says educator Wayne Elinger.

“Far too many people want their kids to become doctors and lawyers today,” says Elinger. “A great many of these students could much more easily become machinists, plumbers, electricians or technicians and make a better living in Spokane.”

Indeed, increasingly Spokane industrial employers report difficulty hiring skilled workers locally, and they are going outside the community to recruit. This, while payroll developers are going outside the community, as well, to recruit more better-paying industrial employers.

Spokane’s largest industrial employer, Kaiser Aluminum, has been agumenting its local work force in the Midwest. “Sadly,” reports Gary Micheau, human resources manager for the aluminum company’s Trentwood rolling mill, “we have been unable to find people with adequate skills here. That’s a problem we need to address.”

Kaiser spokeswoman Susan Ashe says Midwest recruiting has targeted mechanical and electrical skills essential in plant repair and maintenance, including welding, pipefitting, hydraulics, electronics.

Educator Elinger serves as representative of the Community Colleges of Spokane to the Manufacturing Technology Advisory Group. This is a new high-powered alliance of Washington industry, community, government, labor and academic leaders dedicated to training greater numbers of proficient entry-level production workers. The alliance promotes programs in high schools and community colleges.

Elinger said industrial employers in Spokane have great difficulty finding trained and competent technicians to fill a number of niches. Right now, there is a dire need for qualified specialists in electricity and electronics, fluid power and machining.

“Typically,” said Elinger, “students right out of technical training with a two-year degree start out in the vicinity of $20,000.” Not bad, he says, in a community where a family of four can scrape by with $19,000.

Don Ott, area administrator for the Washington State Employment Security Department, says manufacturers here report a chronic shortage of machinists. The challenge, says Ott, is to attract and keep these skilled workers in demand by Boeing and other big West Coast industrial firms paying far more.

Historically, Ott notes, employers in Spokane could count on a stable work force. But work ties tend to unravel in an environment of continued restructuring, downsizing, and reliance on temp workers as opposed to permanent employees.

Turning out more top technicians could, Ott says, encourage local employers to raise wages sufficiently to compete on a higher level for industrial talents.

Sporting a $3.5-million face lift, the Ridpath Hotel landed a five-year contract to host the Washington Association of Wheat Growers convention through the balance of this century.

The five-year pact will bring 500 growers and guests to Spokane annually and is worth an estimated quarter-million dollars a year to the visitor industry, according to the Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The bureau also reports Spokane convention trade set a record in 1995.

According to the bureau’s calculations, some 250 conventions drew more than 138,000 delegates who spent an average of $145 a day for a total impact on the Spokane economy of $51.4 million last year.

Unified Physicians of Washington has received final approval to launch the only statewide doctor-owned and doctor-governed managed care plan, and hired a team to start marketing coverage options.

Spokane insurance veteran Dan McFarlane will be responsible for sales and service in Eastern Washington. He joins Unified Physicians following 20 years in insurance, the last 15 years with Safeco Insurance Co. in Spokane.

The guiding principal of Unified Physicians is making doctors responsible for delivering care and managing costs. The new health network offers a preferred provider plan, a closed-panel plan and a point-of-service plan.

More than half of the state’s 8,000-plus physicians have agreed to participate in the network and it continues to expand, officials said. Nearly all of the state’s major hospitals, along with a number of pharmacies and home health agencies, also have joined.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review