Maintenance mechanics, millwrights keep economic engine running

Their stories couldn’t have started much differently.

Dave Embree was screwed up on drugs for nine years. Ask him to roll up his sleeves and he’ll show you the needle holes. Though he didn’t finish the 10th grade, Embree has turned his life around and is learning a trade.

Curtis Johnson graduated from Priest River High School last year. The son of a cop, he’s one of those kids with obvious smarts. The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., thought so and asked him to make a career of the military.

Johnson, however, is 6 feet 9 inches tall — too big to fly jet fighters; too tall to lie comfortably in the cramped bunks of warships.

Today these two are classmates at North Idaho College. Under the instruction of Jim Cultra they expect to land good-paying jobs at large factories.

Cultra leads the successful maintenance mechanic/millwright program at the Coeur d’Alene-based college.

Beginning each September, he takes a group of 14 students and during the next 11 months turns them into mechanics who can keep industrial plants running.

They ensure newsprint plants in Millwood and Usk roll out enough paper for newspapers in Spokane, Seattle, and California. They keep the giant rollers at Kaiser’s Trentwood mill operating to flatten aluminum to aircraft specifications. They keep machines that make carbon aircraft brakes at the Goodrich plant in working order.

Even as manufacturing in the United States slows, Cultra says the job market for mechanics and millwrights continues to grow.

“As margins get tighter, companies must run more efficiently,” Cultra says. “They are beefing up their maintenance crews with better-skilled mechanics to keep everything running smoothly.”

Indeed, careers in maintenance and repair are listed among occupations with job growth, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Kaiser Aluminum has hired more than 50 graduates from the NIC program over the past 20 years. And the firm hopes to hire four more this year at its Trentwood rolling mill.

“The program is near and dear to my heart,” says Tom Schoening, a maintenance supervisor at Kaiser who oversees the hiring of millwrights.

He was a graduate of Cultra’s program and today sits on an advisory board made up of representatives from some of the area’s major industrial plants.

“Here’s the thing: We know Jim will bend over backwards to help a student, but he won’t put one out there that’s not ready,” Schoening says.

That rarely happens; one of Cultra’s students may not pass each year.

“If anything it is a little frustrating that there are more jobs to fill than students graduating,” Cultra says.

Few drop out under Cultra’s tutelage, even if they start the program with little mechanical skill.

“Sure there’s a direct correlation between an interest in mechanics and success in the field,” Cultra says, “but you’re not supposed to know it all.”

He jokes about some past students, including one man who entered the program with the soft hands of a counselor and whose education already included a master’s degree in social work.

“He couldn’t change the chain on a bicycle when he came here,” Cultra says, “but he made it through and today is a real success story.”

Admission is not competitive; a policy that Cultra says fosters a diverse class and a good array of graduates for companies to consider.

Students in the program are well-known among employers. He routinely fields calls asking about his newest class of factory mechanics and reports the conversations with his students.

“I tell them to read the want ads in the newspaper and ask themselves: ‘Do I have the skills required?’”

Embree and Johnson believe they’re getting close.

Johnson is confident of finding work in Oregon after he graduates. Embree is ready to get on with his life.

“I told my wife that I’m going to make something of my life,” he says. “That’s what this program has been to me – proof that there are good second chances.”